The Significance of Democratic and Civil Control of Security Services for the Aim of Preventing Political Violence - Case Study of the Republic of Serbia After 2000

Abstract

Democratic and civilian control of the security services is the foundation of a society’s democracy. The standard of living measured through the prism of GDP, the level of the unemployment rate, social and health care, and free education are mostly only apparent factors that mask some much more complex phenomena such as the entrapment of democracy if there is no civil and democratic control of the security services, which as will be shown in their work, they very often directly decide on life and death. This especially applies to countries with totalitarian regimes in which any oppositional opinion is sanctioned or, as in the case of Serbia after 2000, in countries where democracy is still young. National security and the security of every individual citizen can be seriously threatened in cases where there is no civilian and democratic control of the security services. The absence of this type of control results in uncontrolled, unconstitutional, and illegal behavior of members of the security services, which is often characterized by the belief that its members, while committing the most serious crimes, are actually protecting their country and order from destruction. This work aims to prove the hypothesis of the need for democratic and civilian control of the security services as the basis of government through a case study of the rebellion of the Special Operations Unit of the State Security Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia, as well as through the case of the murder of Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić, for which members of the former security service were also legally convicted. rights in modern democratic societies.