Following the principle of transparency and the Rules of Procedure of the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) — of which the Republic of Serbia is a member state —, the Ministry of Justice has published the announced Second Compliance Report on Serbia of the Fourth Evaluation Round, in both the Serbian and the English language.
Concrete progress was made in the relevant reporting period compared with that assessed in the 2019 Interim Compliance Report. Specifically, two recommendations were implemented satisfactorily, ten partly, and only one recommendation remained not implemented. By way of a reminder, none of the recommendations were implemented satisfactorily in the earlier reporting period.
Although the progress achieved since the adoption of the 2019 Interim Compliance Report was evident, GRECO concluded that the overall level of compliance with its recommendations was “globally unsatisfactory” given that a large percentage (77%) of the recommendations were partly implemented. The Second Compliance Report also notes that this state of affairs is predominantly due to still pending constitutional amendments, and that Serbia “will only be in a position to fulfil some parts of GRECO’s recommendations once those constitutional amendments have entered into force”.
While following the procedure for amending the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia — as laid down in Article 203 of this supreme legal act —, the Ministry of Justice is making every effort to comply fully with international standards, particularly with regard to strengthening the rule of law and guaranteed separation of powers, by ensuring that the system of checks and balances works.
As for the amendments themselves, the Venice Commission has assessed them positively.