Military Police

The Military Police of the Serbian Armed Forces consists of military police bodies and units. The Military Police bodies are placed in the Ministry of Defence, the General Staff, commands and units of the Serbian Armed Forces. They perform military police and general security tasks within their responsibilities. 

Military Police units perform executive military police and general security tasks. In the Military Police Department of the Serbian Armed Forces General Staff, Army and the Guard, the Military Police units are battalion level units with various purposes and structures. The Training Command and the Air Force and Air Defence Command have Military Police platoons. 

The Military Police affairs are defined by the regulations of Article 53 of the Law on the Serbian Armed Forces. 

The activities of the Serbian Armed Forces Military Police are the following:

On the basis of the Law on the Serbian Armed Forces, a number of normative documents regulating the work of the military police has been made, notably the Regulation on Military Police powers, appearance, use and destruction of official identification, badges of authorized Military Police officers, as well as Rules on authorized officers and methods of administering powers and performing the duties and tasks of the Military Police. Like in the other units of the Serbian Armed Forces, the Military Police duties and tasks are also defined in other documents specific to the military organization.

Professional personnel of the Military Police have the right and obligation to administer their official powers but also the responsibility for their lawful conduct.   

As the law enforcement authority in the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces, authorized officers of the Military Police primarily act in line with their official duties, in accordance with the laws and military regulations. Orders and requests of the government authorities dealing with crime suppression (prosecution and courts) are binding acts by which the military police administer the prescribed powers, collect data and send feedback reports to the authorities that ordered their engagement.

The basis for taking action is also set by requirements of other government agencies with whom the military police have developed functional cooperation, primarily the Military Security Agency and the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Serbia. Also, there are actions based on complaints of legal organizations or individuals concerning damage inflicted to them by military personnel, reports on illegal actions in the Ministry of Defence or actions that inflicted damage to the Ministry of Defence. Last but not the least, the Military Police base their action on orders of military leaders in the chain of command.

Tasks and duties delegated to the Military Police are a basis to determine the capabilities to be achieved. In other words, the Military Police must be able to effectively perform their tasks and duties in all circumstances and in all three missions of the Armed Forces, in accordance with the law, regulations, and orders of the commanders.

Experiences from many years of efficient operation of the Military Police indicate that the foundation of mostly rounded and relatively stable framework of the military police action need not change. But changes in the society and the evolution of existing and identification of new challenges, risks and threats to the Republic of Serbia and its military, will certainly require building of new military police capabilities in the future. 

Due to a large number of various assigned activities and tasks, the Military Police have five specialties,  more or less visible in the organizational structure of the MP units. Basically, the representation of all specialties required for performing the assigned tasks is found at the battalion level. The specialties are:

Military Police units are equipped with modern weapons and equipment, of both domestic and foreign production.

Military Police powers are the following:

Military Police in the Serbian Armed Forces has a long tradition, dating from the beginnings of Serbia as a modern European state. Written sources from the history of Serbia, on the basis of which one can recognize the inception of the military police, date from 1876, when ‘police sections’ were formed in brigade HQs of the Serbian Army by the Order of Prince Milan Obrenović. The sections were made up of selected gendarmes and soldiers. They were active only in wartime, and they are the precursor of today's military police.

In modern history, the Military Police was established as a separate entity within the Armed Forces on September 14, 1955. They were standalone section and platoon level units, with a relatively small number of personnel, who performed tasks in the field of military order and discipline, and some work in the field of security. Gradually, the military police units grew in number and equipment. They were developed in the framework of the security service and, in addition to the above tasks they were trained to perform tasks of security and protection, control and regulation of military transport and crime suppression.

In the period 1955–2004, the Military Police were functionally subordinated to the Security Department. By the end of 2004, as a part of organizational changes, the security and military police domains were separated, followed by establishment of the Military Police Affairs Section, as an independent entity for planning, organizing and managing military police tasks. The Section was reorganized into the Military Police Department in 2006.