Vesna Ilić-Prelić was born on 1 March 1960, in Belgrade.
She graduated from Belgrade Faculty of Law in 1982, as valedictorian of her class (summa cum laude, ten-point-zero GPA). She was admitted to the bar in 1983.
She began her professional career in 1982, first as an intern and then an associate at the First Municipal Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade. From 1986, she started her career of a civil servant with various government authorities. First she worked at the office of the Republic Secretariat of Judiciary and Administration, i.e. the Ministry of Justice, where at the Department of Judiciary she dealt with normative matters, drafting of laws and other regulation, starting as a Senior Advisor and gradually advancing to the Advisor of the Minister of Justice. Next she was appointed assistant to the Republic Secretary of Legal System Department at the Republic Secretariat of Legislation. After a brief time in the field of economy, from 2000 she continued her career in the civil service, being appointed Legal Advisor to the Federal Minister of Telecommunications. In 2004, she was appointed Deputy Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, and after the Law on Public Administration came into force in 2005, she was appointed State Secretary at the same Ministry, and then State Secretary at the Ministry of Education.
She was appointed Judge of the Constitutional Court in December 2007, and was elected President of the Constitutional Court in January 2014. She acted in the capacity of the President of the Constitutional Court until December 2016, when her term as a judge expired. She was re-appointed Judge of the Constitutional Court in December 2016, and re-elected as President of the Constitutional Court in January 2017. She acted in the capacity of the President of the Constitutional Court until 26 January 2020, when her term of office as a president expired.
Between 2000 and 2007, she was especially engaged in the process of harmonisation of national legislation with the rules and standards of the EU, among other things, as the coordinator of the expert team for drafting the first Law on Telecommunications and the legal expert within the OEBS project for drafting the Law on Radio Broadcasting and the project of drafting the Public Information Act, as the project manager in drafting the Law on Associations and the team leader in drafting the Public Administration Reform Strategy in the Republic of Serbia, which was adopted by the government in 2004.
From 1999 to 2003, she was a representative of the Republic of Serbia in the working group of CEPT (European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administration). From 2004 to 2007, she was a member of the Republic of Serbia delegation at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe and the representative of the Republic of Serbia in the Supervising Committee of the Regional School for Public Administration (ReSPA). In 2005, she was a member of the Government working group which prepared the national negotiating position for negotiating the Stabilisation and Association Agreement. In May 2007, she was the head of the Republic of Serbia delegation for defending the Initial report on application of the Convention for Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women before a United Nations Committee (CEDAW).
Until she was appointed a Constitutional Court Judge, she took part in national and regional expert conferences as the author of a number of papers, especially on the topic of decentralisation and structural reforms of public administration.
While performing the function of a Constitutional Court Judge, and the President of the Court, she participated in a large number of national, regional and international conferences and wrote expert papers in the field of constitutional jurisprudence, prospects and development of constitutional justice and the concept of constitutional protection of the guaranteed human rights and freedoms, among which also the following:
- co-author (with the Constitutional Court Judge Bosa Nenadić) of the paper published in 2010 in the Conference Proceedings from the VIII Congress of International Association for Constitutional Law, prepared for the roundtable on the topic “Electoral Systems and Constitutional Principles”;
- participant of the XVI Congress of the Conference of European Constitutional Courts held in Vienna, in 2014, in which, at the Presidents Circle, admission to membership of the so-called „Constitutional Court of Kosovo“ was prevented;
- panellist in a roundtable discussion on the topic „Review of a Judicial Decision“, held within the VI Congress of European and Mediterranean Lawyers which was organised in September 2014 at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade, organised by the Continental Law Foundation of the Republic of France, in collaboration with the Faculty of Law and Judicial Academy;
- author of the presentation „The Competences and Composition of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Serbia“, published in 2015 edition of The Conseil d'État of France, Les Nouveaux Cahiers du Conseil Constitutionnel;
- speaker at the Regional Conference of the Council of Europe held in 2015 in Zagreb, on the topic „Constitutional Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms“;
- participant at the Conference of the Association of the Constitutional Courts of Francophone Countries (ACCPUF) held in Lausanne, in 2015;
- panellist at St. Petersburg Legal Forum in May 2016 (organised by the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of France), with a paper on the topic „The reach and limits of constitutional courts’ activity in realising the function of human rights and freedoms protection“.
Has a good command of English.