DS: Justice minister should solve lawyers' strike or resign

BELGRADE - The opposition Democratic Party (DS) wants Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic to either implement measures to unblock the legal practice or file a resignation, DS leader Bojan Pajtic said in a written statement filed to Tanjug.

Never before in the post-war Serbia has the judiciary been blocked for two months, Pajtic said discussing the ongoing lawyers' strike launched on September 17.

The exclusive responsibility for this rests on the justice minister who is accusing lawyers instead of looking for a solution to the problem or filing his resignation due to incompetence, the DS leader said.

Pajtic noted that the minister accused lawyers of acting as pawns of tycoon Miroslav Miskovic against whom the authorities have launched criminal proceedings. In this light, the minister appears to be claiming the strike was organised so as to prevent Miskovic from being convicted, Pajtic said.

The DS leader said that the minister thus accused all lawyers of corruption without any tangible evidence to substantiate the claim.

Pajtic, who also hold office as the head of the Vojvodina Executive Committee, also refuted Selakovic's claim that President of the Vojvodina Bar Association Srdjan Sikimic is his advisor.

This is utterly untrue and it is a lie which aims to politicise a strike in which not a single political party is participating and which gathers all lawyers regardless of their political affiliation, Pajtic underscored.

He noted that this is a state matter and not a party issue because without participation of lawyers in the judicial process, there can be no judiciary or legal state either, which is why the justice minister needs to solve problems and not throw around accusations...