The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights is concerned by the increasingly frequent displays of generosity by higher courts towards people openly expounding Fascism. The most recent such display is the decision by the Novi Sad District Court to overturn the municipal court verdict finding Goran Davidović aka Fuhrer, the leader of the unregistered organisation National Formation, guilty of damaging the reputation of journalist Dinko Gruhonjić because “some court documents were not in the Cyrillic script and the indictment was written in the Latin alphabet”. The District Court found that this constituted a “violation of Davidović’s rights”. The first-instance verdict was handed down over two years ago. The District Court decision has thus added grist to the mill of Davidović and his counsels and their cynical attempt to play dumb and mock the rights of their compatriots whilst propounding false patriotism. Whoever claims that the Latin alphabet is incomprehensible to the courts and parties in the proceedings in Serbia – a country in which many newspapers, publications and written public communication material use this alphabet freely, in which it is taught even in primary school and in which it is the sole script of several national minorities – is toying with human rights and legal certainty. The District Court decision threatens to become a dangerous precedent which may be invoked to overturn a large number of court decisions and challenge numerous proceedings before state authorities.
International law provides everyone with the right to address the court in the language s/he uses and understands. This right applies to the use of alphabet as well. The Cyrillic script is indeed declared the official alphabet by the Constitution of Serbia, but this provision obliges only the courts, which are state authorities, and not the parties in the proceedings, to use it.
Three years ago, Davidović was convicted yet another felony, for physically assaulting the participants in an anti-Fascist gathering. The authorities, however, failed to seize his passport and he took off for Italy. Is one now to presume that his extradition is out of the question because Italian authorities are not versed in the Cyrillic script, the only alphabet authorities in Serbia may use? The Ministry of Justice stated four months ago that Davidović would be extradited to Serbia in three or four weeks’ time.
