Recently, as a guest and interlocutor of the Commission of Experts of the European Union, I had the opportunity to hear and present current legal aspects related to war crimes from the 90s, committed on the territory of Montenegro. With noticeable "optimism", the experts presented, or conveyed, the position expressed by the highest level of the Montenegrin judiciary, i.e. when it comes to the "Štrpci" case, that "justice has been served" by the conviction of one of the perpetrators of that crime.
If it weren't for the truth and time, which even the proverbial prosecutorial-judicial oblivion has been eroding all these years, and if the "Štrpci" case was a coincidence or the only crime in this area, it could perhaps be taken to be true. One would say - well, we investigated, accused one of the thirty and convicted him. But without any doubt, to a reasonable person, this is not what could be considered or accepted as any "satisfied justice".
The crime of abducting a Bosniak from a Serbian train, on Bosnian land and in front of the Railway Station - ŽTP Belgrade office, was committed on February 27, 02 in Štrpci, when nineteen people (1993 Bosniaks and 18 Croat) were abducted and brutally murdered, really happened. . During all these years, characterized by very good police-judicial cooperation between Serbia, Montenegro and BiH, as is known, parts of the remains of only three murdered Bosniaks were found. About thirty kidnappers, criminals and murderers are still walking freely in Serbia and Bosnia, and perhaps in Montenegro. Their leader, the criminal Milan Lukić, who is counting down the days of his life sentence in Scheveningen, has not yet been questioned by prosecutors in The Hague, Belgrade and Podgorica about that crime. On the other hand, for the Montenegrin judicial top, the sum of all this is, as we have heard, "justice satisfied" - as he thinks and says, God help him.
Is hypocrisy another name for such a measure of "satisfied justice", perhaps it would be too mild a word, but without any doubt, only the gullible can believe in this "satisfied justice" which is less and less, but at most, similar to a kind of professional "eulogy" but on someone else's pain. The accusation and trial of only one criminal, and it is known for sure that the crime was committed by thirty of them, is nothing but a mockery of justice and fairness, and even less a confirmation of "justice served". What is the Montenegrin judiciary, after the conviction of only one, truly did to investigate the case of Bosniak suffering to the end, to find the bodies of the victims and to bring all the criminals to justice - nothing. In response to the long-filed criminal complaint of the Montenegrin Committee of Lawyers for the Protection of Human Rights, which deals with command and other responsibility for the committed crime, the Montenegrin prosecutor's office, apart from the proverbial silence, did not even honor the applicant with a formal position on the rejection of the report.
"There is no satisfaction of justice until the past is faced through court decisions"
Until 2006, the Montenegrin prosecutor's office functioned in the FRY prosecutor's office system, when the same report was submitted to the Serbian prosecutor's office, which also systematically ignored it. But, if it was not recognized as a branch of political marketing, the Prosecutor's Office for War Crimes of Serbia announced at the end of last year, through headlines, that it was on the trail of the seven perpetrators of crimes in Štrpci. To make a big nothing more convincing, the deputy prosecutor comes to Prijepolje, gathers the happy and gullible families of the victims. Instead of informing them with some optimistic information and restoring their faith in the state's determination to shed light on this terrible crime to the end, which was expected, not being ashamed of God or people, he asked the injured parties to provide him with information and tell him everything they know about the crime . The families of the victims, who knows how many times and once again defeated, were returned to their disbelief and helpless despair. Again, is that "justice done"? And for whom?
Or, did the Supreme Court of Montenegro perhaps satisfy justice when, from the same event, the mother Đorđina from Bar, awarded 20.000 in the name of mental pain, to the mother Đorđina from Bar for her abducted and murdered only son, was reduced by €5.000 in a review decision, at the same time putting her in an unequal position before the court in in relation to the Babačić family from Podgorica, who also lost a son. No, he did not satisfy justice because that highest court applied the law in these two identical cases selectively and inappropriately unfairly.
Finally, can the Montenegrin judicial top talk in isolation about "satisfaction of justice" if it cannot boast of justice in any of the pending cases of war crimes. Military and police reservists kill and displace Bosniaks from Pljeval's Bukovica - the judicial epilogue of the crime is reduced to classic acts of abuse and murder, which is legally impermissible. Can the missed legal and factual qualifications from the charges and verdicts in the case of crimes against civilians in the Morinj camp be justified or the criminal-legal circumvention of those most responsible for the crime of deportation of over eighty Bosniaks - and without any responsibility of the employees of such justice. The victims of the Kaluđerski laz crime are not to be talked about, because according to the court's decision, it turned out that, by some chance, they killed themselves - because there are no responsible people either. Are these also cases of "satisfied justice"?
Certainly they are not and cannot be until the Montenegrin judiciary faces the past through court decisions and heals or heals from political restraint and imposed heavy envy, which over time has turned into a kind of epidemic, due to which the characteristic blindfold that was lost long ago, as a symbol of justice and fairness, Justice in Montenegro has not been at the table for a long time.
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