A five-member commission established by Serbia’s Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office has begun reviewing the legality of the work of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade, examining several high-profile cases that have attracted public attention in recent years.
According to Serbian media reports, the commission has requested files on the Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse, the alleged use of a sound cannon during protests and the Senjak case. Nova has also reported that the review includes investigations into the alleged surveillance of students, activists, members of parliament, prosecutors and university professors.
The Belgrade Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office is headed by Nenad Stefanović.
A source at the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office told the newspaper Danas that the review covers cases that have been prominent in public debate over the past several years. The source alleged that some proceedings may have been used to target political opponents or to secure more lenient criminal classifications for individuals close to those in power.
These claims have not been independently established, and the review is intended to examine the legality of prosecutorial conduct.
Scrutiny of surveillance orders and plea agreements
According to the reports, the commission is particularly interested in the legality of surveillance orders and plea agreements concluded by the Belgrade Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The review is part of a broader instruction issued by Supreme Public Prosecutor Zagorka Dolovac to all 87 public prosecutor’s offices across Serbia, including the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime.
Under the mandatory instruction, chief public prosecutors or their deputies must provide commission members with access to every case file, identified individually or descriptively. Prosecutor’s offices are also required to provide suitable working conditions on their premises, subject to the commission members’ agreement.
The instruction states that the objective is to promote legality, effectiveness and consistency in prosecutorial decision-making, while monitoring and guiding the work of prosecutors and overseeing compliance with general mandatory instructions.
Several cases under review
The cases reportedly requested for examination include:
- The Novi Sad canopy collapse: The investigation into the railway station disaster that killed 16 people in November 2024 and triggered widespread protests over alleged corruption and institutional negligence.
- The sound cannon allegations: Questions surrounding the alleged use of a sound cannon during demonstrations and the handling of the related investigation.
- The Senjak case: Another high-profile matter involving the Belgrade prosecution service.
- Alleged surveillance: Reports of monitoring students, activists, politicians, prosecutors and university academics.
The review could shed light on how these cases were handled and whether prosecutorial procedures complied with the law.
The Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office has not, in the information cited by the reports, announced findings of wrongdoing. The commission’s work remains a review of prosecutorial conduct rather than a determination that any individual or institution has violated the law.
