Serbia’s Ministry of Justice has published the names of all 49 people granted pardons by President Aleksandar Vučić on September 27, the day he announced his resignation.
The Higher Court in Niš released the names of 20 individuals on Tuesday, including Boban Džunić, the former president of the Palilula municipality in Niš. The Higher Courts in Belgrade and Novi Sad had previously published the names of 23 others.
The Ministry said it had forwarded the pardon decisions to the competent courts in accordance with the law, explaining that the full list could not be made public before the courts had been notified.
In its statement, the Ministry emphasized that granting pardons is a constitutional power of the Serbian president under Article 112 of the Constitution.
“The exercise of this constitutional power does not, in itself, constitute interference in the work of the judiciary,” the Ministry said.
Vučić signed the decisions on September 27, but the courts received them only on November 2.
Among those previously identified were former Interior Ministry State Secretary Dijana Hrkalović and Marko Pavlović, who was accused of attempting to murder student Sonja Ponjavić.
The Higher Court in Niš said that all the decisions it received concerned exemptions from criminal prosecution and had taken effect on the day they were issued, according to Tanjug.
Džunić, a former head of the Palilula municipality and former director of Elektrodistribucija Niš, had been facing trial on abuse-of-office charges. According to Nova.rs, he was arrested in 2017 on suspicion of misusing EU funds allocated through a cross-border cooperation project with Bulgaria.
His former deputy, Nikola Božić, who was accused of assisting in the same alleged offense, was also pardoned.
Most of the other individuals on the Niš list had faced charges involving the alleged continued abuse of official position in co-perpetration.
Complete list of the 49 pardoned individuals
The full list published by Serbian authorities includes:
Dijana Hrkalović, Dragana Živadinović, Nebojša Đokić, Miodrag Selaković, Marko Pavlović, Radoš Kadijević, Slobodan Pećinar, Željko Milivojević, Gorski Matović, Igor Elez, Nemanja Narači, Ognjen Stanković, Stevica Kiš, Aleksandar Kocić, Lazar Dinić, Marija Vasić, Lado Jovović, Mladen Cvijetić, Srđan Đurić, Davor Stefanović, Mila Pajić, Branislav Đorđević, Doroteja Antić, Dejan Bagarić, Jovan Dražić, Anja Pitulić, Nikola Božić, Boban Džunić, Snežana Radivojević, Dragan Trajković, Miloš Arsić, Sanja Stojanović, Dušica Davidović, Miloš Petrović, Goran Milosavljević, Milorad Jerkan, Miodrag Stojanović, Slavoljub Živadinović, Ivan Mihajlović, Srđan Mitrović, Vladislava Ivković, Nenad Stanković, Aleksandar Tričković, Slobodan Đukić, Bratislav Todorović, Milosav Simović, Igor Novaković, Miloš Dugalić and Tomo Stojić.
The publication of the list provides the first complete public accounting of the 49 presidential pardons, several of which involved individuals facing criminal proceedings.
