For an extended period, public prosecutors and employees of public prosecutor’s offices have been subjected to media attacks, largely based on falsehoods, insinuations, and sensationalism. These attacks are directed at members of the Prosecutors Association of Serbia who publicly advocate for the rule of law and the autonomy of the public prosecution service. We particularly draw attention to the attacks against holders of prosecutorial office in the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime and the War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office. The Prosecutors Association of Serbia strongly condemns these inappropriate media attacks, which seriously undermine the reputation of the public prosecution service, the autonomy of the public prosecution, and constitute improper pressure on holders of judicial office.
Media content in which prosecutors are labeled as criminals, traitors, Ustashas, blockade supporters, cocaine and opiate addicts, as well as violent individuals, represents an uncivilized, unprofessional, and socially dangerous form of public communication. Such rhetoric is in direct contradiction with the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, the laws, the fundamental principles of a democratic society, and the Journalists’ Code of Ethics.
In addition to being inappropriate and unfounded, this type of reporting directly endangers the safety of prosecutors and their family members by creating an atmosphere of lynching and hostility toward institutions whose duty is to protect legality and the public interest.
Freedom of the media includes the right to criticize the work of institutions, but not the right to target, dehumanize, and publicly discredit individuals without evidence and without accountability for the spoken word.
Media outlets that systematically incite hatred toward prosecutors more than toward crime and criminal conduct risk becoming accomplices in the erosion of the legal order and public trust in state institutions.