MoJ: Right to pardon an explicit constitutional power of president of Serbia

BELGRADE - In a reaction to public allegations disputing the constitutionality of pardons issued by former Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia's caretaker Ministry of Justice said on Thursday the right to pardon represented an explicit constitutional power of the president of the Republic under Article 112, Paragraph 1, Item 7 of the 2006 Constitution of Serbia.

In a statement, the ministry said the right to pardon was an institute of constitutional law whose nature implied the possibility of the president giving pardons, including exemption from criminal prosecution, explicitly envisioned by Article 110 of the Criminal Code.

The ministry also said the use of the power to pardon was not a novelty in constitutional law practice in the Republic of Serbia, and noted that, since the entry into force of the 2006 Constitution, the power to pardon had been used by Presidents Boris Tadic, Tomislav Nikolic and Vucic, and that the decisions to give pardons, as well as personal or other information, had never been published in the Official Gazette or on the websites of the president of the Republic or the Ministry of Justice before the decisions had been submitted to the competent judicial authorities.

It also said that, over the course of two terms as president of Serbia, Vucic had issued 78 pardons, compared to 197 and 105 issued by Tadic and Nikolic, respectively.