Constitutional Court Still Writing 2023 Election Ruling
Opposition's request to annul Serbia's December 2023 election was filed in January 2024. The Constitutional Court said on August 2, for the first time, that the draft ruling is still being written.
Serbia’s Constitutional Court has said for the first time how far it has gotten with the opposition’s request challenging the December 2023 parliamentary election. A statement issued on August 2, 2026, says the case is now at the stage of drafting the court’s proposed ruling. The request was filed with the Court in January 2024, meaning more than thirty months have passed between the filing and this statement.
The judge rapporteur on the case is Vladan Petrov, president of the Constitutional Court. The Court cited this as common knowledge, adding that the judges elected in December 2025 first had to familiarize themselves with the material tied to the pending requests. “The proceedings are currently in the phase of drafting the constitutional court’s proposed decision,” the Court said in its response.
Why the case sat for so long
The explanation the Constitutional Court offers has to do with the change in its composition. According to that account, the newly elected judges first worked through the case files, and only then did deliberations begin. As proof that work is moving forward, the Court points to two rulings it has issued, in cases VU-16/2024 and VU-10/2024.
Those two case numbers say something else as well. Both cases carry a 2024 designation, meaning they came in with the same batch of requests as the one concerning the parliamentary election, and both were resolved ahead of it. The case touching on the composition of the National Assembly was left for last.
Three requests, one answer
In January 2024, the opposition filed requests at three levels: for the republic, provincial and Belgrade elections. An answer has come for only one of them.
Biljana Djordjevic, an MP with the Green-Left Front, says the ruling on Belgrade was a rejection, on the grounds that the city assembly had not yet been constituted at the time the request was filed and that new elections were already underway. For the republic and provincial levels, there has been no answer at all.
Djordjevic says the same pattern shows up outside election cases too:
“It’s been three years since we filed a request for a constitutional review of the Social Card Act, and we haven’t received so much as a letter or a postcard.”
According to her, more than ten proposals for constitutional review filed by the Green-Left Front together with allied MPs are still waiting without any response.
What Petrov said in April
The president of the Constitutional Court has spoken publicly about this case only once, in April 2026, on a TV Nova program. He declined to discuss its substance at the time but described what stage the work was in.
“I’m not allowed to talk about so called live cases that are pending before the Constitutional Court. I wrote the report on this case and presented it at a preparatory session. Unfortunately, there was no continuation of that session under the previous composition of the Constitutional Court. Now I am president of the Constitutional Court, and I can say that we might work on it to the end, or we might not.”
Petrov also said at the time that a ruling at that point could cause upheaval, and that a judge rapporteur or a court president can leave a case in a drawer through several changes of composition.
No deadline in sight
Lawyer Bozo Prelevic says he isn’t aware of a single Constitutional Court ruling issued in under four or five years, except in cases that touch on those in power.
“The problem is when the Constitutional Court fails to rule on the previous election while the next one is already upon us. The question is whether the Constitutional Court offers judicial protection to people wronged in the electoral process.”
We have reported previously on how the Constitutional Court is preparing for the next election cycle, and on a complaint against Petrov that is also pending before the institution. The August 2 statement is the first official word on the case’s status since Petrov’s April appearance, and it comes down to one sentence: the draft ruling is being written.
No date has been announced for the session at which that draft would be reviewed.
