Judge of the Basic Court Jelena Anđelić submitted to the Special State Prosecutor's Office the case files on the lawsuit of three former employees against the Employment Agency, in which they demanded 200 thousand euros each as compensation for work in the commission for two years from February 2016 to February 2018.
At the beginning of yesterday's hearing, she told the parties in the proceedings that she submitted the case files to the SDT on November 23 last year, two months ago, with the aim of the prosecution checking whether the actions that are the subject of this dispute have grounds for committing a criminal offense in relation to to the decision-makers in the Institute, in connection with the calculation of enormous amounts of monthly fees for work in the commissions of that institution.
Seven former members of these commissions, in several court proceedings, are seeking total compensation amounts of two million euros. In some cases, the amount of compensation was estimated at 15.000 euros per month in expert reports.
The judge stated that these enormous amounts of monthly fees were stated in the expert reports, but also in the previous proceedings between the same persons and the Institute before the Agency for peaceful resolution of disputes.
She stated that she believes that it was her duty to inform the prosecution about these facts, and that she expects that this will relieve this court of the doubts that arose during the proceedings.
After that, the judge informed the parties in the proceedings that she did not receive a notification from the SDT as to whether any actions were taken regarding her report, nor that the case files were not returned to her from the prosecutor's office, which is why the hearing could not continue yesterday.
Prosecutors' lawyer Nikola Vukčević said that he is against sending the files to the prosecutor's office and postponing the hearing.
The representative of the Institute, lawyer Nebojsa Batrićević, supported this court procedure and said that the Institute will send additional documentation to the prosecution in order to investigate whether there are also other participants in this process who are also responsible.
Stanko Laković, a former member of the Institute's committee and one of the three prosecutors in this dispute, said that through the Court, he is urging the SDT to invite him to a hearing as soon as possible in order to inform them of all the circumstances that led to the decision to form this commission to monitor the employment program of persons with disabilities
"If it is proven that I or anyone else is involved in the commission of a criminal offense in this case, I will demand the most severe punishment for myself and I will immediately report to the law enforcement authorities of this country. In the eight years and six days that I spent at the Institute, I monitored and tried to ensure that every cent that was spent was spent in a legal and, above all, effective way so that people with disabilities get the status they should have," said Laković.
This commission was formed in 2016 by the then director of the Institute, Vukica Jelić, and the problem arose because the decision itself did not specify the amounts of fees for members, which left room for free interpretation. So the experts multiplied the fee amount by the number of processed applications - requests and received figures of over ten thousand euros per month. The members of the commissions received variable wages for that work.
About twenty days after the formation of this commission, the new Law on the Public Sector entered into force, which prohibited officials working in commissions from receiving additional fees as part of their tasks.
After the political changes in 2020, the new management and director Goran Folić also formed the same commission, but with a precisely determined monthly fee of 120 euros. The same commission members who are now demanding monthly fees of over ten thousand euros for the period from 2016 to 2018, after 2020, accepted that they do the same work in the commission for 120 euros.
In a similar court proceeding on the lawsuit of two other members of the commission, whose hearing was supported last week, the Court accepted the request to hear the former director Jelić as a witness. Judge Anđelić previously refused to hear the former director as a witness in this proceeding.
All trials in these cases are attended by authorization by the President of the Board of Directors of the Institute, Dejan Vojvodić, who previously requested that the prosecution be involved in this procedure in order to avoid great financial damage to the Institute and the state.
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