DPM Bečić proposes naming Police Academy after Slavoljub Šćekić

Deputy Prime Minister for Security, Defence, Fight Against Crime and Internal Policy Aleksa Bečić has submitted an official initiative to the Management Board of the Police Academy in Danilovgrad to rename the institution to: Public Institution Higher Vocational School ‘Police Academy Slavoljub Šćekić’, in honor and memory of the late Inspector Slavoljub Šćekić, who lost his life in the line of duty fighting organized crime.

On 30 August 2025, Montenegro will mark twenty years since the murder of Criminal Police Chief Inspector Slavoljub Šćekić – one of the most honorable members the Montenegrin police has ever had. In the early hours of that morning, in Tološi, in front of his family home, the life of a man who wore the uniform not for privilege, but for principle, was brutally taken. He was just 46 years old. He left behind a family and colleagues, but also a legacy of truth and justice that continues to resonate two decades later.

Inspector Šćekić’s professional journey embodied everything a police officer should aspire to: strict adherence to the law, personal courage, unwavering ethics, and deep-rooted respect for the people and the state. He was a police officer who did not yield to pressure, did not succumb to fear, and never compromised with injustice. That is precisely why he was unacceptable to those who envisioned a state shaped by their own interests, rather than one governed by law and citizens' rights. Slavoljub Šćekić did not die because he made a mistake – he died because he was right. For that reason, his name must not be forgotten, nor remain absent from the institutions that educate future generations of law enforcement professionals, stated Deputy Prime Minister Bečić.

Deputy Prime Minister Bečić emphasized that Šćekić’s name deserves to stand at the entrance of Montenegro’s highest police education institution as a daily reminder to cadets that the honorable wearing of a uniform does not begin on the day of employment, but on the day one chooses to uphold truth over personal gain.

In a society where institutional boundaries were blurred for decades, Slavoljub Šćekić stood apart. It was precisely because of this distinction that he became a target. Renaming the ‘Public Institution Higher Vocational School – Police Academy’ to the ‘Public Institution Higher Vocational School – Police Academy Slavoljub Šćekić’ would send a strong message: Montenegro remembers those who gave their lives not for power, but for the rule of law – not for position, but for truth. His name would confront every new student at the academy with a simple but profound question: Am I ready to be like him? Bečić concluded.

The Deputy Prime Minister stated that this initiative is a message that a true state begins where the honor of those who gave their lives to defend it is preserved, and that the future of Montenegro’s Police must be built on the legacy of those who upheld the law – even when it cost them everything.

The initiative is grounded in Article 76, paragraph 1, item 7 of the Law on the Fundamentals of the Education System, which authorizes the Management Board of an institution to propose a change in the name and seat of the institution, as well as Article 19, paragraph 1, item 10 of the Statute of the Public Institution Higher Vocational School Police Academy.