Vucic Pardons: Justice Ministry Publishes List of 49 Names

The Justice Ministry published on the afternoon of November 3 the names of all 49 people pardoned by Aleksandar Vucic, the former president of Serbia. Until then, the public had only seen fragments of the list, released through statements from higher courts, and nobody had seen the whole.

The decisions are dated September 27, 2026, which means they were made in the final days of Vucic’s term, ahead of his resignation, and took effect the same day. The Organized Crime Prosecutor’s Office asked on October 31, as we reported, for the documentation on the pardons, and the names were still unknown at that point.

Why did the list take more than a month?

Journalists and the public had been asking institutions for the names for more than a month. In its statement, the Ministry says it first had to deliver the decisions to the competent courts and only then publish the list:

“Institutional responsibility requires that judicial bodies be formally notified in advance of decisions concerning cases within their jurisdiction.”

The same statement says the Ministry “could not publish the list of pardoned persons before it was officially delivered to the competent courts.” As the legal basis it cites Article 112, paragraph 1, item 7 of the Constitution, under which “the right of pardon is an explicit constitutional power of the President of the Republic of Serbia.” The Ministry adds that use of this power “does not constitute interference in the work of the judiciary or, in itself, abuse of office,” and that “the opposite interpretation would call into question the very purpose of the institution of pardon, which exists precisely as an exception to the regular conduct of criminal proceedings.”

Which court published what

The Ministry delivered the decisions to the courts on November 2, and the names then surfaced one batch at a time:

• The Higher Court in Novi Sad published 18 names, among them Gorski Matovic and a group of Novi Sad activists who had been under investigation on suspicion of preparing acts against the constitutional order
• The Higher Court in Belgrade published five names on November 2: Dijana Hrkalovic, Nebojsa Djokic, Marko Pavlovic, Dragana Zivadinovic and Milos Dugalic
• The Higher Court in Nis published 18 names on the morning of November 3, and then two more
• The First Basic Court in Belgrade announced that Miodrag Selakovic had been pardoned

The Higher Court in Belgrade said in its statement: “All of the stated decisions of the President of the Republic of Serbia on pardon take effect on the day they were made.” Of the names not known from the courts’ statements, five are new on the Ministry’s list: Rados Kadijevic, Slobodan Pecinar, Zeljko Milivojevic, Slobodan Djukic and Tomo Stojic.

What is known about individual names

Dijana Hrkalovic, a former state secretary at the Interior Ministry, was relieved of prosecution for influence peddling (case KPo1 214/21). In January 2025 she was convicted at first instance and sentenced to 16 months in prison, and the Court of Appeals overturned that verdict in December of the same year. Nebojsa Djokic was relieved of prosecution for money laundering (KPo1 151/21), and Dragana Zivadinovic, the former president of the Higher Court in Nis, for abuse of office and forgery of an official document (KPo1 234/23). Milos Dugalic was relieved of serving the rest of the sentence from the Belgrade Court of Appeals verdict of March 20, 2025.

Marko Pavlovic was relieved of prosecution for attempted aggravated murder (case K 105/25). He is accused of driving a car through a blockade at the intersection of Ruzveltova and Kraljice Marije streets in Belgrade on January 16, 2025, and seriously injuring a female student, S. P. Miodrag Selakovic was pardoned for a serious criminal offense against general safety. He is accused of hitting Veroljub S. (90) with his car on May 14, during a protest near the Faculty of Law, and seriously injuring him.

Proceedings before the Basic Court in Ub against three Serbian Progressive Party activists, Slobodan Pecinar, Rados Kadijevic and Zeljko Milivojevic, were discontinued because of the pardon. They were on trial for an attack on an activist, M. P., who suffered minor injuries. Also on the list is Slobodan Djukic, who in April beat Z. J. in the office of the Kosjeric municipal president and then fled. Igor Novakovic, the former president of the Nis City Assembly, was pardoned as well, along with the doctor Igor Elez, who was charged with taking a bribe.

Namenska: pardon for a conviction over the deaths of two workers

Tomo Stojic, a former manager at the “Milan Blagojevic Namenska” factory in Lucani, was finally convicted and sentenced to two years in prison over the July 2017 explosion that killed workers Milomir Milivojevic (25) and Milojko Ignjatovic (55). He was pardoned of the sentence. Milivojevic’s father Milovan said earlier, as N1 recalls:

“In this country of ours, this state of law, as the president told me, I could not prove the truth and justice for 7.5 years, unfortunately.”

What others say

Milica Radovic, the attorney for the injured student, told Insajder that she had feared such an outcome and warned that political will must not be allowed to steer court proceedings. Vucic said on November 1, appearing on Pink TV: “There are those pardons, the 47 or 49, I don’t know exactly how many. I knew back then, now I can’t remember.” The best known among the pardoned for him is Mila Pajic, he said on that occasion.