Filozofija i drustvo 2013 Volume 24, Issue 1, Pages: 81-118
https://doi.org/10.2298/FID1301081V
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Serbian anti-corruption policy: Welcome to Potemkin’s village?
van Duyne Petrus C. (Department of Criminal Law Tilburg University, Tilburg, Netherlands)
Law enforcement in Serbia concerning the offence of corruption is similar to
a camera obscura: opacity prevails. This does not instil much trust in the
population: surveys carried out by or on behalf of the UN reveal that only
politicians and doctors are more distrusted than judges and prosecutors.
Corruption is a very underreported offence, as victims have the feeling that
the authorities do not care about corruption: why report? An extensive
statistical analysis of corruption cases handled by the prosecution and the
court showed that the camera obscura metaphor had to be refined: apart from
being opaque, the law enforcement institutions behave like a random box.
Neither in the prosecution service nor in the courts could a policy be
discerned. The outcome of the judicial system in terms of prosecution and
sentencing appeared to be statistically at random. A qualitative analysis of
the most serious corruption cases demonstrated to what extent these cases
occurred in all layers of society. In such cases the government was
non-responsive to complaints of its own institutions. Also in other matters
the authorities demonstrated a lot of foot dragging. Despite the
anti-corruption strategies one may wonder whether the government really
cares.
Keywords: corruption, law enforcement in Serbia, anti-corruption strategies, public policy