Who Is Afraid of Reforming the Police?

More than 50 million Euros of foreign aid have been invested and more than 670 billion dinars from the state budget have been spent in the police reform over the last 15 years. As the end result, the citizens’ calls for help are being left unanswered by the police.

By Saša Đorđević (BCSP)
@Bambayay

Two things are constant when it comes to the police reform in Serbia.

First, the international community constantly invests in order to make the police better. Head of the OSCE Mission to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia at the time, Stefano Sannino, announced a 4.3 million Euros earmarked for the police reform in June 2002. Swedish Ambassador to Belgrade, Christer Asp, signed an agreement worth 9 million Euros with the Minister of Interior, Nebojša Stefanović, in December 2015 with the intention to contribute to the police reform. In the meantime, additional 45 million Euros were invested and 670 billion dinars from the state budget were spent.

The second constant is the fact that, for the last 15 years, the citizens have been listening to the same stories told by politicians. “The police are an increasingly modernizing service to the citizens.” “The police have to be a service for all citizens.” “We will do everything in our power to make the police a service to the citizens.” From 2001 and onwards, four ministers of interior proclaimed that the police are there for the citizens. It is then only logical to ask two questions. Why, after all, these years of reform and invested money, the police did not help the citizens on the election night when a whole neighborhood in the Serbian capital Belgrade was torn down? Where are the professionals from the police to raise their voice against the destruction of the reputation of the police service?

The result of the 15 years long reform, among others, is the fact that only 3% of citizens believe that the police is free of corruption, where seven out of every ten say that corruption is a problem. In Germany, only 20% share the same belief, whereas the global average is 60%. These figures speak volumes about the scope of the problem. The Internal Affairs Sector, the organizational unit within the police in charge of controlling the legality of police conduct, has been filing around 130 criminal charges against police officers in any given year after 2008. This is an extremely small number when the high perception of corruption is taken into account. An additional problem is the inability to learn anything about the epilog of the filed charges. The Public Prosecutor’s Office does not keep a record of the charges brought against police officers.

The second serious problem is the fact that three-quarters of Serbian citizens think that the police work is under political influence. The decade-long behavior where politicians organize spectacular announcements of arrests, speak about the ongoing investigations or scapegoat certain individuals in public, did a significant damage to the work of the judiciary and the police. This practice utterly undermines the due process and the criminal code. In the last 15 years, the Serbian White Book on Organized Crime was a frequent topic in the newspaper headlines. It was announced that White Book will not be published and its entire contents will be kept strictly confidential. The live recordings of the apprehension of the “Bankruptcy Mafia” and organizations of press conferences close to the crime scenes ushered us into a new era of disclosing the information from the ongoing investigations in a way that is attractive for the media. Today, the results of polygraph tests are being disclosed to the public almost in real time, whereas the information about the police questioning “individuals interesting from the security perspective” is being released to the public. This way of doing things means that politicians are abusing their public offices for gaining political points while the professionalism of prosecutors and police is being destroyed along the way.

These problems are also identified by the international community which, as well as in the immediate aftermath of the democratic changes after 5 October 2000, now also requires from Serbia to introduce protective measures in order to allow for the police to work in a politically neutral manner. This means that, for instance, the top ranking police officials should not be able to issue an order to release a person despite their false personation and attempt to detain an activist during the protest of the civic “the Don’t Drown Belgrade” initiative. This person was released with no consequences and no criminal charges were brought against them.

Some police officers in Serbia are not prone to corruption or politics. The reasons are the finances, fast-tracked career advancement or fear from losing a job. The pinnacle of politicization over the last 15 years is the police unresponsiveness to the citizens’ calls in the night of elections when 12 buildings were destroyed in the Belgrade neighborhood of Savamala. The instruction not to react came from the “top of police” and, despite the fact eight months have since passed, there is no epilog. The Internal Affairs Sector did not initiate a control procedure in order to investigate misconduct by the police, although the prosecutor’s office issued a request for an investigation. The Minister of Interior promised a perfect investigation, but all circumstances point to the fact that the Government wants to relativize this case where the citizens were molested, extra-judicially arrested, tied up and their property was taken away.

The Savamala case points not only to the fact that the rule of law in Serbia has collapsed but also to the systemic deficiencies within the police. The Internal Affairs Sector is not independent in their work. Some senior police officers attempted to withhold information from the Ombudsman during the control procedure initiated by the Ombudsman, which proves the existence of the “blue wall of silence,” i.e. the fact that police officers refrain from reporting their colleagues. There is an unwritten rule that these are the problems that are best handled in-house. The MoI did not implement the recommendations issued by the Ombudsman, which is in contravention to the law. Despite the fact that in 2014 the cooperation between these two institutions was exemplary, today this is no longer the case. At the same time, in 2015 the number of complaints against police officers filed by the citizens to the Ombudsman’s Office grew by two-thirds when compared to the previous year.

The MoI is one of the biggest ones in the state administration when it comes to the number of people employed. Estimates are that almost 6% of all employees in the public sector work at the MoI, i.e. more than 40.000. Four years into the human resources management reform in the MoI first results are noticeable. The Human Resource Management Sector was formed. The new Law on Police offers a much-needed improvement in the area of selection, employment, and career advancement. The call for recruiting employees by the MoI is now mandatory. Bylaws that regulate the selection process both in open and internal calls have been adopted. The vetting process is no longer to be conducted only at the initial phase of recruitment but also throughout the career. The first calls were launched, which is a good sign that the MoI would cease with the bad practice of appointing top level officials in the acting capacity. The skills and competences necessary for the successful professional engagement have been defined. By doing so, the starting preconditions for making a qualitative change in the police work have been met.

However, difficulties are still very much present and everything will be in vain if the new solutions are not put to work. An opportunity was missed with the new Law on Police by not regulating the status of graduates from the Academy of Criminalistic and Police Studies. For a long time now, an annual sum of 3 million Euros have been earmarked for the education of criminologists, forensics, and IT experts who, after obtaining the degree and a contract with the MoI, are not granted a proper job placement in the police. It is not a good practice to have the Minister of Interior making finals decisions when it comes to the internal or open recruitment calls, such as the appointment of the Selection Commission’s members or the decision for filling of the job posts. The selection of the Head of Police was lagging behind. It has been almost a year since the former head of Traffic Police, Vladimir Rebić, was appointed acting Head of Police under unclear circumstances. Finally, The Serbian Government in December 2016 appointed Vladimir Rebic as the new police director after the open comptetition. The real reasons for the dismissal of the previous Head of Police, Milorad Veljović, who in the meantime became an adviser to the Prime Minister, remain unclear.

The continuation of the police reform in Serbia first and foremost depends on the political will to strengthen their integrity. Police operations must be conducted free from the political influence. The Internal Affairs Sector must be independent in their work and fearless when it comes to controlling the legality of police work. The human resources management reform must be implemented in a transparent manner. After 15 years of reform, Serbia deserves the police that will be a professional service to the citizens.

The article was originally published in weekly magazine NIN in Serbian.