Ilić: By pardoning the SNS activists, Vučić violated the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights

Vladic Ilić from the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights said that Aleksandar Vučić violated the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights by pardoning the SNS activists who attacked the students and dislocated the girl’s jaw. “You cannot use pardons without a reason,” Ilić stressed.

The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights reported that from 28 June to 7 July 2025, it filed 14 criminal charges against members of the N.N. police in uniform and civilian clothes, and against persons posing as police officers, with prosecutors’ offices in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Užice, for unlawful conduct and excessive use of force against Serbian citizens.

“If expectations were based on current practice, they would not be high, but we expect that something will change and that prosecutors will understand that acts of torture and abuse deserve the same treatment as other serious and grave crimes committed in Serbia,” Vladica Ilić told N1. He added that he hoped the law would be implemented in these cases.

“So that police officers will be identified and prosecuted, and where there is room, perhaps their detention or arrest,” Ilić said.

He added that in Serbia “there are hardly any (police officers) who have suffered criminal consequences as a result of torture.”

“Where there have been, they have been low punishments”, Ilić said.

“The system is the people, it is the prosecutors who can solve this.”

Prosecutors are the ones who can resolve situations such as abuse of citizens, he said.

“The system is the people, so prosecutors are the ones who can solve it. It would contribute a lot to preventing the recurrence of such situations if at least in a few cases we could show that the law also applies to police officers,” Ilić said.

He stressed that “abuse is a criminal offence” and that police officers are also criminals when they commit such acts.

“I have heard many times that phantom caps are part of the intervention uniform. They can be part of the uniform, but in certain situations, for example when there is an order from a superior, there has to be some justification for it. Otherwise, they could be so misused that we will never see the faces of police officers again,” Ilić said, adding that this promotes the idea that protection from torture is not possible. “Classic abuse of power”

He said the case of the student who had his hair pulled by police officers was a “classic abuse of power”.

“I don’t like to say abuse of power; it is a classic abuse of power. It is a violation of the law, the aim of which was to unlock the phone. They should not have done that. If they thought there were grounds to seize the item, they could have done so. However, if someone forcibly opens someone’s phone, they cannot do so even with a court order,” Ilić stressed.

He drew attention to the fact that this was done by plain-clothes police officers.

“I believe they will be identified. I stress again – if we had at least a few cases where it was shown that the law also applies to police officers who abuse citizens, this would contribute to preventing torture,” Ilić said.

On the Serbian President’s decision to pardon Serbian Progressive Party activists who attacked students and a girl in Novi Sad and dislocated her jaw, he said it was a “violation of the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights”.

“Pardon is an institution that is in the hands of the President of the Republic and represents a type of discretionary decision-making,” Ilić said, but added that this discretion should not be abused.

“You cannot use the pardon without a reason,” Vladica Ilić of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights told N1./N1/