The Supreme Land Court (Serbian: Врховни суд земаљски, romanized: Vrhovni sud zemaljski) of the Principality of Serbia was formed in 1846 as the court of last resort by the decree of Prince Aleksandar Karađorđević.

[2] The modernization and strengthening of the judicial system in Serbia continued during the Defenders of the Constitution era (1842–1858).

The results of this modernization were the separation of judicial and executive branch, creation of the positive law, weakening of Prince's autocracy and implementation of the financial control.

He used the Serbo-Turkish War of 1862 to limit the executive and legislative power, but not the judiciary.

According to the law, the Court of Cassation (Serbian: Касациони суд, romanized: Kasacioni sud) had three chambers.

The law gave the Court of Cassation the power of judicial interpretation instead of the minister of justice.

The court was still under the Government's influence, but the judicial independence was constantly strengthening.

The Court of Cassation became authorized to try a judge who was found to violate the law.

It authorized the creation of the singular Court of Cassation with its seat in Zagreb and with the jurisdiction over the whole nation.

After the reorganization of 1922, the Court of Cassation (and its department in Novi Sad) had 35 judges.

The Department of the Court of Cassation in Novi Sad had jurisdiction over the territory of Banat, Bačka and Baranja.

During the so-called 6 January Dictatorship period, the effort were made to unify the courts of the country.

Later in 1945, the Supreme Court of Yugoslavia (Serbian: Врховни суд Југославије, romanized: Vrhovni sud Jugoslavije) was created with its seat in Belgrade.

The Law proclaimed the courts to be free and independent from other branches of the government.

The 1963 Constitution of Serbia did not bring any major changes to the judicial organization with the exception that the Supreme Court of AP Vojvodina was abolished, and the departments of the Supreme Court of Serbia for Vojvodina and Kosovo were established instead.

[5] Current composition of the court (year of election to the Supreme Court is given in parentheses):[7] Source:[8] This article incorporates text from the Constitutional Court of Serbia official site ([1]), which is in the public domain, because it is a law, decree, regulation or official material of a Republic of Serbia state body or a body performing public functions, under the terms of Article 6, Paragraph 2 of Serbian copyright law.