In order for a society to truly and effectively enter into the process of dealing with the past, it is necessary, as much as possible, to look objectively at the real causes and consequences of certain events. As a result of specific events, especially if they are "mentored" by the level and structure of the government or caused by the detached actions of individuals, the needs of this time impose an obligation to confront the past.
A social environment in which it would be possible to recognize crimes, criminals and victims is the fundamental basis for dealing with the past. With an orderly process of lustration, the conditions of distance from the structures to which all that would ensure an effective confrontation with the past can be attached would be achieved. An independent and objective judiciary, with documented investigations, would be only one of the conditions for achieving the goal and purpose of lustration.
As the legal basis has not yet been provided, along with proven unfounded accusations, thus in continuity and acquittals for crimes that actually took place in these areas, such a guard of the Montenegrin judiciary (read states) practically means tacit "abolition" or the lowering of a heavy curtain in front of " characters and deeds" of the most responsible individuals. Summing up such a situation, I perceive only the declarative confrontation with the past as more of a state-political decorum or purposeful empty speech.
In times that are associated with numerous and indisputable crimes, killings and mass expulsions of civilians, it is recognizable that in our case they took place in areas that were not affected by war events, that the victims are almost always people of a different religion and nation, as well as that during that time an environment was created in which crimes were tacitly approved or covered up. In the case of the "Kaluđerski laz" crime, the public was informed only after five years, which means that the state kept silent about it. The case is similar to the genocide (1992-1995) in the area of Bukovica, Pljevlja, the crime "Morinj" or the most serious of them, "deportation". If the crime is only the hiding and nurturing of criminals, then any attempt at lustration is closed. Therefore, until the Montenegrin judiciary dares to finally do what it is supposed to do, it should not be expected that those responsible for command or other responsibility will be found on the dock. In this regard, the most responsible in the cases of practically state crimes have still not provided answers to the key question: how, why and with what intention they "approved", lobbied and kept silent on indisputable crimes, finally, instead of them, that the prosecution did not all this time seeks such answers.
In order to avoid compensation to the families of the victims of 22 Albanian civilians in the area of Rožaj, carried out through the really dependent judiciary at the time, the position of the Supreme Court from the decision of Su. no. 123/10 dated 25. which the lower court reluctantly followed, when it was decided to terminate, but only certain proceedings, tying it to the "condition" of ending the criminal trial that was in progress at the High Court in B. Polje or to the obligation that the injured parties name specific perpetrators. Without any doubt, in such a way, justice is trapped indefinitely with the state key - and I would add: either "Justice", which by some mistake landed on Montenegrin soil, was blindfolded by someone very powerful, or she fell into a difficult Montenegrin - judicial disfavor.
In contrast to this kind of selective justice, in the case of the crime of "deportation", there was no waiting for official criminal justice, "generous" monetary damages were awarded, or through undisputed state settlements, which was not bad in the end, but the rest without an answer to the possible question: whether by "replacing theses" a smokescreen was released on the truth or on the biographies of those to whom until recently the Montenegrin judiciary submitted work reports - otherwise, the government of that time would be paying for "other people's" sins.
There is an interesting case of obvious selective justice at the highest judicial level, when from the events of the crime "Strpci" in relation to two injured families, different compensations were awarded, which, in addition to the judicial human sin, brought into question the equality of citizens before the court at the highest judicial level. .
Also, in the case of the murder of the boy Sokol Ljaić, the High Court in Podgorica twice overruled the verdict of the Basic Court in Podgorica, which accepted the family's claim for damages in two sets of trials. In both annulment cases, extremely unreasonable, the second-instance court insists on determining how Soko was killed, although it is known for certain that he, Ramu Ljaić and Hatmon Bajraktari, as part of the "Kaluđerski laz" crime, were killed by members of the army at the time. With such an absurd but binding position of the second-instance court, the first-instance court was put in an unsolvable dilemma, i.e. whether he can determine how Soko died and on what basis (and everything was done without witnesses). The epilogue of such a trial is an imperative order to terminate the procedure for compensation of damages and put the exercise of rights on indefinite hold until the end of the criminal trial.
Through the inevitability and imperative for this Montenegro, to face the time from the difficult nineties through legislation and effectively, to turn the judiciary into a true legal support, a lever of the state that can be trusted. On the contrary, if the judiciary, and its highest instance, produces legal "dilemmas", it will not or is not able to recognize that in the 1990s in the area of Montenegro (Rožaj) an unprecedented and terrible terror of the army against citizens took place, that according to the position of the Supreme Court, killing people, destruction of property, displacement of entire settlements, abuse of individuals and the like, is allegedly not an act of violence (which is one of the legal conditions for the foundation of lawsuits for compensation of damages, then the same court fell into a kind of legal contradiction. Specifically, the prosecution accuses (although according to dubious selection) of a certain suspect, the court confirms the accusation and the war crime trial, so that in civil proceedings the same prosecution would challenge the crime and the victims.
In all of this, contrary to the position of the highest judicial instance, we will agree that the greatest values of every state are people, the protection of citizens' lives and property, which are fundamental constitutional categories. Therefore, the attack on those values, in the time when the state is falling apart, the indiscriminate killing of citizens is nothing but an act of terror and violence arising from religious-nationalist and political motives, directed through man as a victim and thus against the state system. In the same way, the Montenegrin judiciary is well aware that the killing of innocent civilians can legally be called genocide, a crime against humanity, against civilians, and the like, and the common name for all of this is violence and terror, which the Supreme Court obviously won't or can't understand. (by decision Rev. - 934/11 of 22), thereby blocking not only justice, but also the truth from which one cannot run away.
Hadži Ahmeti and everyone else know that he was just one of the victims of the violence and terror that occurred as a result of the actions of the detached parts of the army. In his case (the bullet channel went from the front to the back through his chest) for the mental, physical pain and fear he experienced, the first-instance court awarded him €15.000, the second-instance court reduced that amount by €3.000 so that the Supreme Court annulled both the verdicts for a retrial, and to determine whether in that case it was about acts of terror and violence directed against the state system. If the actions of that army and the state policy of the time produced countless human victims, and people make up the state and the system, all that, including the killing of civilians for nationalist reasons, is nothing but violence and terror aimed at state organization. Therefore, any rigid linking of lawsuits and trials for damages and their outcome, as well as conditioning on the uncertain outcome of a criminal trial for a war crime, cannot be understood otherwise than as a defeat of judicial justice or as projecting the intention that instead of legal resolution, truth, law and justice court decisions of indefinite imprisonment.
The author is a lawyer and executive director of the Montenegrin Committee of Lawyers for the Protection of Human Rights
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