Selakovic: We are close to good solution for state, lawyers

BELGRADE – Serbian Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic said Thursday that the strike of lawyers was a culmination of a bad situation in the judiciary, which in itself was a result of pursuing bad policies in the past.

Selakovic said for Belgrade-based TV Pink Wednesday that he had had a meeting with representatives of the legal profession and Finance Minister Lazar Krstic on Monday and they had agreed to set up a working group tasked with eliminating irregularities in the implementation of the regulation on the criteria for taxation of lawyers.

The working group should do the entire job by the end of the month, Selakovic said, expressing the belief that a good solution acceptable for both the state and lawyers would be arrived at.

He stressed that it was good that the lawyers’ strike had ended, adding that a broad dialogue on many issues affecting the legal profession and the judiciary would be led in the future.

The strike started in Belgrade on June 18 and spread across the country very soon.

Lawyers who pay lump sum taxes were disgruntled by multiplied taxes and wanted the Finance Ministry to scrap new regulations that they said increased tax liabilities by 40 percent, or even by 100 to 300 percent in some cases.

The Bar Association of Belgrade decided on Wednesday to end the strike after a meeting in the Serbian government with Ministers Selakovic and Krstic, and the other lawyers in Serbia ended their strike two days earlier, on Monday.

Photo Tanjug, S.Radovanovic