Prime minister unveils bust of Slobodan Jovanovic

Prime minister unveils bust of Slobodan Jovanovic

The ceremony was attended by state and city officials, professors and students of the Faculty of Law and many citizens.

Prime Minister Vucic also opened a newly-built amphitheater in the park behind the faculty building that will be used for outdoor lectures.

Slobodan Jovanovic (1869-1958) graduated from the Geneva Faculty of Law in 1890, specializing in state law in Paris. As a theoretician, he published a 17-volume collection of works.

He was a professor of the Belgrade Faculty of Law for a full 43 years and served twice as the rector of the University of Belgrade.

He became a full member of the Serbian Royal Academy in February 1908 and served as its president from 1928 to 1931.

Jovanovic headed the press bureau of the Supreme Command of the Serbian army during the Balkan wars and World War I and participated in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference.

During World War II, Jovanovic was the vice-president and then also the president of the London-based Ministerial Council of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (the exiled government).

As a result, he was sentenced in absentia by the Military Council of the new communist authorities to 20 years of imprisonment with forced labor, loss of political and civil rights for 10 years and loss of property and citizenship.

Based on the verdict, his works were not printed in Yugoslavia until as late as 1990, and he was rehabilitated in 2007. He died in London on December 12, 1958 as a stateless person