Seselj Refuses to Quit Serbian Parliament Over Conviction
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Vojislav Seselj, who was sentenced to ten years in prison for crimes against humanity in Serbia, said on Friday that the law that specifies that an MP’s term ends if he or she is sentenced to at least six months in jail does not apply in his case.
“That provision of the law only applies to those who are supposed to serve prison terms,” Serbian Radical Party leader Seselj told daily newspaper Blic.
Seselj was sentenced by the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague this week to ten years in prison for inciting crimes with nationalist speeches in the Vojvodina region of Serbia during the war in 1992.
But he will not go to prison because he already spent over 11 years in custody in The Hague.
Serbian law, however, does not recognise this as a reason not to strip a sitting MP of his or her mandate.
Article 88 of the Law on the Election of MPs clearly states that an MP’s term ends if he or she is given a non-suspended prison sentence of six months or more.
However, according to the law and the parliamentary rules of procedure, the MP has to personally file his or her resignation to parliament.
Only after that the relevant parliamentary board for administrative issues has to recognise that the MP’s term has ended.
Opposition MP Aleksandra Jerkov, who is a deputy member of the parliamentary board, told BIRN that the various interpretations of the law put forward by Seselj and his supporters are invalid.
“Of course we will insist on initiating a procedure to end Seselj’s term,” Jerkov said.
Lawyers and NGOs have been urging the Serbian parliament to remove Seselj since his sentence was passed on Wednesday.
The Humanitarian Law Centre NGO also warned on Friday against allowing Seselj to remain in parliament.
“It is especially paradoxical for someone like Seselj, who is convicted of violating the right to safety of civilians on the territory of Serbia, to sit on the [parliamentary] board for the control of the security services,” the HLC said in a press release.
The Hague court cleared Seselj of wartime crimes in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
