Lawyers to continue protests until their demands are met

BELGRADE - Lawyers staged a protest in downtown Belgrade on Tuesday under the slogan "One Minute to 12", sending out a clear message that their strike, which started on September 17, will not end until the amendments to the Law on Notaries Public are adopted.

Under pressure from the lawyers, the Serbian Justice Ministry has partly met their demands and drafted a Bill on amendments to the Law on Notaries Public which the Serbian parliament is soon to adopt.

The amendments propose that - besides public notaries - the lawyers also be authorized to draw up real estate sale contracts, which are then to be certified by the notaries.

The lawyers are not content with this compromise and request Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic to issue a decree on the implementation of the law that would effectively abolish public notaries.

At the protest, which the Bar Association of Serbia (AKS) has estimated brought together about 5,000 lawyers from around the country, representatives of local chambers argued that the government does not want to make changes to the law because huge financial interests of "some people in the world of politics and the economy" are at stake here.

AKS President Dragoljub Djordjevic accused the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) of "complicity in a joint criminal enterprise" with the Serbian government to introduce the public notary system in Serbia, pointing out that GIZ had financed numerous marketing activities and preparations for the introduction of public notaries.

Earlier, the Ministry of Justice already accepted the lawyers' demands to lower lump-sum taxes this year, and how much the reduction will amount to could be decided at a meeting between representatives of...