A Belgrade court has delivered a landmark ruling: the parents of a 14–year-old school shooter have been sentenced to prison for criminal negligence. The tragedy, which claimed nine lives last year, has prompted a judicial response that stands in stark contrast to our own increasingly permissive approach to parental responsibility. The court cited 19th-century British jurisprudence, invoking the principle that parents bear a duty of care beyond mere sentiment.
It is a decision that would make Lord Macaulay smile and every progressive social worker wince. We in the West have spent decades dismantling the scaffold of accountability. Children are no longer raised; they are ‘allowed to flourish’, which is to say, left to the whims of dopamine-spiking screens and identity-fluid chatrooms.
In Serbia, they still understand that the apple does not fall far from the tree, but when it does, the tree must be held to account. This verdict is not an act of vengeance; it is a reaffirmation of a social contract that we have torn to shreds. It is high time Britain looked in the mirror and asked: are we raising citizens or liabilities?
