In the coming days, a working group will be formed to develop guidelines for the implementation of the Plea Agreement, it was agreed at the meeting of representatives of the Supreme Court with representatives of the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office and the Higher State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica.
The Acting President of the Supreme Court, Vesna Vučković, pointed out, as announced by the Supreme Court, that the development of guidelines for the implementation of the Plea Agreement is also an obligation according to the Action Plan of the Council for the Rule of Law, given that the European Union indicates that a revision is necessary application of agreements that dominate judicial practice.
The guidelines, therefore, would solve the issue of the courts' mild punishment policy, emphasized Vučković.
"A plea agreement is a good way to bring the defendant to court in a short time. In addition to speeding up the procedure, its costs would also be significantly reduced. The only question is what is the lower limit, below which one must not go when concluding such an agreement, that is, whether an agreement or a regular court procedure is more acceptable to the defendant".
Therefore, as she said, it is extremely important that representatives of the courts will participate in the future working group.
Presenting the draft for future guidelines prepared by the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office, Acting Supreme State Prosecutor Maja Jovanović said that this document recognized the problems and shortcomings of the current implementation of the Plea Agreement and that the draft represents a detailed basis on which the working group, for a very short time, to be able to develop new guidelines.
"One of the recommendations is to exclude the criminal offenses of money laundering and human trafficking from the plea agreement," said Jovanović.
The head of the Higher Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica, Lepa Medenica, believes that the Plea Agreement is very important in cases where there are multiple defendants.
"If we analyze how long such proceedings take in our country, it is obvious that the agreement would significantly shorten the duration of court proceedings, and saving time would also mean saving financial resources that are spent during the proceedings," concluded Medenica.
The Supreme Court was actively working on the creation of the Analysis of Criminal Policy, noted one of its authors, the secretary of that court, Ksenija Jovićević Korać, pointing out that during the recent collegial visit to the Supreme Court, European experts were presented in detail with the reasons that significantly determine the number of signed plea agreements. .
"This primarily refers to the number of courtrooms as well as judges' offices where trials are held very often, as well as the court deposit where confiscated evidence such as narcotics or weapons are stored. Thus, in a practical way, they could see the justification of the application of the Agreement, in order to achieve the efficiency of the criminal procedure", explained Jovićević Korać.
According to the agreement, as announced, the members of the working group for the development of guidelines for the implementation of the Plea Agreement will be from the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the High Court in Podgorica, the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office, the Special State Prosecutor's Office, the Higher State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica and one expert.
The Supreme Court reminds that, in the last six years, out of 480 plea agreements reached, only eight were rejected.
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