Unlawful Removal of Senior Civil Servants: Legal Uncertainty and the Undermining of Merit-Based Public Administration
In the period between July 2025 and August 2026, Serbia’s Government practiced dismissal of senior civil servants (SCS) without any legal grounds, in breach of the Civil Servants Law (CSL). The CSL lists a closed set of grounds for dismissal and requires merit-based, fixed-term appointments. In the analysed period, however, the Government dismissed at least five SCS without citing any ground. Such removals strip SCS of the stability that shields them from political pressure.
In every identified case, the dismissed officeholder was replaced by an acting official, and no vacancy has been launched since. In all but one case (the Public Policy Secretariat), the replacement was installed at the same session as the dismissal, and in several cases, appointees came from outside the civil service, contrary to the CSL. The Public Policy Secretariat was instead left without leadership for three months. Both routes deny the institutions merit-based, tenure-protected leadership.
The practice extends beyond the central state administration. Between January and July 2026, six directors of cultural institutions, a public agency, and a public service were replaced in the same manner. These cases do not breach the CSL, which does not apply to the employees of these institutions, but they show a consistent method of asserting political control across the public sector.
This method rests on the routine misuse of acting appointments, which have become the default way of filling top management positions. In the latest PSHRM PAR Monitor 2024/25, 81% of SCS appointment decisions were identified as acting appointments, while the European Commission reported that 62% of SCS positions were filled on an acting basis (as of September 2025). A mechanism designed as a temporary exception has thus displaced merit-based recruitment.
The problem is systemic and likely larger than documented, considering that materials from 31% of observed Government sessions were not published on the Government portal.
As a result of these practices, what began as politicisation of the SCS has become a deeper rule-of-law issue. The brief recommends that the Government state the specific legal ground in every dismissal decision and publish key materials from all its sessions. The Government and HRMS should end excessive and prolonged acting appointments and launch competitions for vacant SCS posts, with HRMS systematically collecting and publishing competition data. The Administrative Inspection should regularly review the legality of acting appointments.
Download the brief here.
Unlawful Removal of Senior Civil Servants: Legal Uncertainty and the Undermining of Merit-Based Public Administration
In the period between July 2025 and August 2026, Serbia’s Government practiced dismissal of senior civil servants (SCS) without any legal grounds, in breach of the Civil Servants Law (CSL). The CSL lists a closed set of grounds for dismissal and requires merit-based, fixed-term appointments. In the analysed period, however, the Government dismissed at least five SCS without citing any ground. Such removals strip SCS of the stability that shields them from political pressure.
In every identified case, the dismissed officeholder was replaced by an acting official, and no vacancy has been launched since. In all but one case (the Public Policy Secretariat), the replacement was installed at the same session as the dismissal, and in several cases, appointees came from outside the civil service, contrary to the CSL. The Public Policy Secretariat was instead left without leadership for three months. Both routes deny the institutions merit-based, tenure-protected leadership.
The practice extends beyond the central state administration. Between January and July 2026, six directors of cultural institutions, a public agency, and a public service were replaced in the same manner. These cases do not breach the CSL, which does not apply to the employees of these institutions, but they show a consistent method of asserting political control across the public sector.
This method rests on the routine misuse of acting appointments, which have become the default way of filling top management positions. In the latest PSHRM PAR Monitor 2024/25, 81% of SCS appointment decisions were identified as acting appointments, while the European Commission reported that 62% of SCS positions were filled on an acting basis (as of September 2025). A mechanism designed as a temporary exception has thus displaced merit-based recruitment.
The problem is systemic and likely larger than documented, considering that materials from 31% of observed Government sessions were not published on the Government portal.
As a result of these practices, what began as politicisation of the SCS has become a deeper rule-of-law issue. The brief recommends that the Government state the specific legal ground in every dismissal decision and publish key materials from all its sessions. The Government and HRMS should end excessive and prolonged acting appointments and launch competitions for vacant SCS posts, with HRMS systematically collecting and publishing competition data. The Administrative Inspection should regularly review the legality of acting appointments.
Download the brief here.
