Professor Marinković: We do not know for certain who is behind spying on students, but we can make an assumption

The people behind the alleged spying on students have not been identified with certainty, but constitutional law professor Tanasije Marinković says the state’s involvement is obvious.

Speaking to N1 television, Marinković said prosecutors in a country governed by the rule of law would examine whether anyone’s privacy or data secrecy had been violated. Unauthorized surveillance measures, he said, could amount to criminal offenses.

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The state is obviously involved.

He acknowledged that prosecutors can ask a pre-trial judge to authorize secret communications monitoring in exceptional cases involving very serious crimes. Such measures also require at least grounds for suspecting that the person monitored committed a crime.

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Public resources and public services, which should really deal with serious matters such as the security of the Republic of Serbia and its citizens, are actually being used for the personal partisan needs of the current clique in power.

But Marinković said student testimonies and the conduct of tabloid media showed that students had become targets. He argued that public resources and services intended to protect Serbia and its citizens were instead being used for the personal and partisan interests of those in power.

He said the allegations should be examined by the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office, and possibly by the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime. Under normal rule-of-law conditions, he said, that would be the regular course of action. Instead, he described the situation as a hybrid war waged by members of an organized criminal group within the state against their own citizens.

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If we were talking about normal circumstances, about conditions in which countries governed by the rule of law operate, this would be a matter the prosecution would have to address.