Statement: We Have Filed a Lawsuit with the Administrative Court over the Ban on the Pride Caravan in Pirot

Association Da se zna! has filed a lawsuit with the Administrative Court against the Pirot Police Department over its decision to terminate the public gathering held as part of the Pride Caravan in Pirot on 18 July.

We consider the Pirot Police Department’s decision to ban the Pride Caravan to be unlawful, as it was not based on a concrete assessment of security risks, but rather on general allegations of a potential threat to public safety. The order terminating the public gathering does not specify who allegedly posed a security risk, the extent of that risk, or why the police failed to apply other, less restrictive measures that would have enabled the peaceful gathering to take place.

In our lawsuit, we argue that, under the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court of Serbia, the state is not only obliged to refrain from unjustifiably restricting the freedom of peaceful assembly, but also has a positive obligation to take reasonable and appropriate measures to facilitate peaceful assemblies. The mere existence of opposition to a gathering or the possibility of counter-demonstrations cannot constitute sufficient grounds for banning or terminating a public assembly.

In this case, instead of ensuring the exercise of the constitutionally guaranteed right to peaceful assembly, the police prevented Association Da se zna! and the participants of the Pride Caravan from accessing the location of the gathering. In doing so, they applied the most restrictive measure available without considering other alternatives at their disposal.

We are asking the Administrative Court to annul the Pirot Police Department’s order terminating the Pride Caravan and to find that it unlawfully restricted the right to peaceful assembly. Should the Administrative Court dismiss our claim, we will pursue the case before the Constitutional Court of Serbia and, if necessary, before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.