Brnabic: Venice Commission's opinion on judicial laws absolutely positive

VENICE - Serbian Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic said on Friday the Venice Commission had given an absolutely positive opinion on a set of Serbian judicial laws, and announced that amendments to those laws would be tabled to the parliament next week.

Speaking to reporters in Venice following a plenary session of the Venice Commission, Brnabic said the body's opinion was exceptionally important for Serbia's EU path, rule of law and everything Serbia was deeply committed to.

She said a debate at the session had been good and that good technical expert-level meetings had been held on Thursday.

"Everyone praised us here and said that, in the past several years, they have not seen a Venice Commission opinion that was so positive and given at such short notice. We have demonstrated how capable we are of working efficiently, quickly and well," Brnabic said.

She noted that, on February 10, she had submitted a request to the Venice Commission to assess the amended laws and give its opinion, and that the process had been completed in four months.

"That is very efficient. They submitted the comments to us and we responded to those comments, and then they submitted new comments, we responded to those new comments as early as yesterday and early in the morning today. We worked additionally on certain changes, so we have an absolutely positive opinion of the Venice Commission and, as early as next week, we will go to the parliament with amendments to those judicial laws," Brnabic said.

The laws were passed by the parliament in late January.

The amended laws are the Law on the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Law on Organisation and Jurisdiction of Government Authorities for Suppression of High Technology Crime, the Law on the High Prosecutorial Council, the Law on Judges and the Law on the Seats and Territorial Jurisdictions of Courts and Public Prosecutor’s Offices.