Regional Anti-corruption Initiative (RAI), took part in a conference on “Criminal Liability of Police Officers in the Western Balkans”, which was organized by the regional POINTPULSE network of civil society and which took place on 21 December 2017, in Belgrade, Serbia.

The conference “Criminal Liability of Police Officers in the Western Balkans” is a joint initiative of the regional POINTPULSE network of civil society and the Regional Anti-Corruption Initiative, and marks the finalization of the third year of the project “Western Balkans Pulse for Police Integrity and Trust”. The conference was supported by the Netherlands Embassy in Serbia and the European Union through the program “Civil Society Facility”.

The main topic of the conference was the cooperation between the police internal control and the prosecution in a criminal investigation of police illegal behavior.

During his remarks, Mr Vladan Joksimovic, Head of Secretariat, has stated that institutional integrity is based on individual integrity and adequate repressive mechanism is one of the prerequisites for successful law enforcement agencies. Furthermore Mr Joksimovic has stated that in its work plan for the next three years, RAI has also included the area of ​​integrity in law enforcement agencies and strengthening regional co-operation of competent agencies as one of the strategic priorities.

The conference created an environment for debating the challenges in cooperation between police internal control bodies and prosecution, with a goal of proposing solutions for more effective criminal liability system for police officers. The success of this cooperation contributes to police integrity building, but also to the general prevention of the criminal offenses committed by police officers.

The conference directly addressed the lack of regional debate on most pressing issues and solutions for police integrity and the absence of effective application of criminal liability procedures.

Agenda can be found here.

21 December 2017

RAI Secretariat