For almost a decade, the higher courts have not passed a single conviction for accepting and giving bribes. In the lower courts, since 2015, three convictions have been handed down - one house arrest and two sentences of seven and nine months in prison. As for bribery, all sentences are suspended, or a few months in prison.
Although corruption, the main form of which is bribery, has been widespread for a long period of time in many areas, as the European Commission (EC) has been warning for years, in almost all of the few convictions, those convicted of accepting bribes are police officers, usually at lower levels. positions. All sentences are either below the legal minimum or close to it, with different practice in similar cases.
In the adjudicated proceedings from 2014, a total of around 11.000 euros, several driver's licenses, certificates and telephones were seized.
This is the balance of the results of the judiciary in the last ten years, when we talk about the criminal acts of receiving and giving bribes, according to the information Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN-CG) obtained through free access to information and search of decisions on the courts' website.
The Criminal Code (CC) stipulates a prison sentence of two to fifteen years for a person who receives a bribe, and one to eight years for a person who gives a bribe, with the exception of those who report that they have given a bribe, before which the authorities discover.
International expert for the fight against corruption Drago Kos for CIN-CG, he points out that the situation, when we talk about the fight against corruption, is worrisome as a whole.
"With a large number of cases of high corruption, there would simply have to be more judgments at all levels. It is obvious that the fight against high corruption is either not a priority of the institutions or that these institutions are prevented from doing their work. And either of those two reasons should be grounds for great concern."
For ten years, Montenegro did not even have a Strategy for the fight against corruption. That document was recently adopted, as part of the so-called IBAR packages. The Strategy states that the balance of achieved results in connection with trials and final judgments in cases of high corruption is almost non-existent.
And while our statesmen brag that the fight against corruption is progressing significantly, there is practically no epilogue to any major "affair" in Montenegro, and the cases initiated in recent years against high-ranking representatives of the government, the judiciary or the police have either not yet been brought to court or are at the very beginning. .
"The well-known corruption scandals that caused huge damage to the budget and citizens of Montenegro were not prosecuted, nor were they sanctioned. Therefore, numerous strategies for the fight against corruption, action plans and other documents from that area are just a dead letter on paper", the lawyer assesses for CIN-CG Marija Radulović.
The appellate court reduces the sentences, the same sentence for convicted and unconvicted
Judging by the final verdicts for accepting and giving bribes, the Montenegrin judiciary can "boast" of several decisions against traffic and border police officers, two advisors in the MUP and a dozen other individuals.
In 2014, the High Court in Podgorica sentenced two traffic police officers to two years in prison each for accepting bribes, and in the same year the Appellate Court reduced their sentence to one year in prison.
"Given the fact that it is not about extremely dangerous behavior of the accused, as the first-instance court wrongly found, but about behavior that is inappropriate for the service in which they are employed, and that until the commission of this criminal offense they were conscientiously performing their service for which they were rewarded, the aforementioned considered the mitigating circumstances as particularly mitigating", it is written in the judgment passed by the judges of the Appellate Court at the time Milivoje Katnic, Milić Međedović i Seka Piletić.
They were convicted of the extended criminal offense of accepting bribes, for which a prison sentence of two to twelve years is provided, with the fact that the sentence can be increased for an extended criminal offense.
It has been proven that on the Podgorica-Petrovac road, they took bribes in an unspecified amount from citizens who committed traffic violations several times. It is also interesting that, in this procedure, the previously convicted policeman received the same sentence, as did the other one who was not convicted.
In 2015, another traffic policeman was sentenced to two years in prison for prolonged bribery, because he repeatedly took money on Podgorica roads in order not to report and collect traffic violations. Four accused of bribing a police officer received suspended sentences.
However, this time the judges of the Court of Appeal confirm the sentence, with a completely opposite explanation, which speaks of the uneven judicial practice for similar criminal acts.
"The fact that the accused was an active member of the police at the time of the commission of the criminal offense indicates the increased degree of social danger of the accused as the perpetrator, and considering the number of actions taken that were part of the extended criminal offense, and the fact that as an MUP officer, he is more times awarded, it is not of any influence to impose a lighter sentence on him than the one he was sentenced to," the judge's decision reads. Zoran Smolović, Dragiša Rakočevića i Milenke Žižić.
A border policeman was sentenced to six months in prison for accepting bribes ten years ago. Controlling the state border, he demanded 300 euros from the citizens of Kosovo to let them cross the border illegally to Croatia.
In the last guilty verdict of the High Court from 2015, two advisors in the MUP were convicted of completing various jobs in the MUP for other defendants for money. The adviser in the Ministry of Internal Affairs received four and a half years in prison, and her colleague received two years and three months. Those accused of bribery were given house arrests, or a couple of months in prison.
House arrest for bribery and abuse of position
Two more convictions, but on the charges of the basic prosecution, were handed down in 2017. In November 2017, the basic court in Rožaje sentenced two customs officials to nine and seven months in prison for prolonged bribery, for which a sentence of two to eight years was threatened. . One was additionally accused of abuse of official position. They were convicted of facilitating the illegal transport of goods across the border.
As part of the same events, the head of the security sector in the Rožaj police was sentenced, in a separate procedure, to house arrest for accepting bribes and abuse of official position. Although the Basic Court in Rožaje reduced his sentence far below the minimum and sentenced him to seven months in prison, the High Court in Bijelo Polje considered that too much and in 2018 changed the sentence to six months of house arrest. They judged Milovan Spasovic, Jadranka Ćulafić i Radoslav Konatar.
"The first-instance court did not sufficiently appreciate the previous life of the accused, who was blameless, performing the work of a police officer for more than 30 years, why was he financially rewarded...", among other things, it says in the explanation of the verdict.
And in the acquittals, almost all the defendants are police officers.
The leader of the customs control shift at the Debeli Brijeg border crossing was acquitted in October 2015 of taking a bribe to let a man who was transporting paint buckets without a transit declaration pass.
One police officer was acquitted in October 2019, on the charge of the ODT, for accepting a bribe. He was accused of taking 300 dollars from an American on the train, so that he would not report him because he did not have a passport.
Three border policemen were acquitted in February of last year of illegally smuggling cigarettes, coffee, alcohol and other goods across the border seven times in 2019.
"From the transcripts, it was not possible to check whether the voices recorded with the ambient microphone belong to any of the defendants, because in the process of making the transcript, the identification of the undisputed voice for each of the defendants was not done, and then the matching of that voice with the spoken words recorded on critical occasions was examined through the appropriate expert. a measure of secret surveillance," the judgment reads.
Another interesting situation happened in 2018. The first-instance verdict of the High Court in Podgorica, which acquitted the police officer of charges of accepting bribes, did not even undergo an examination before a higher court instance - the Court of Appeal, because the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office gave up the appeal, which was filed by the Higher State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica.
In 2019, a customs inspector was acquitted of bribery charges, as there was no evidence that he had asked for a bribe from the owner of a store.
But that's why the man who reported that the judge of the Supreme Court took money for making a decision in a case before that court, for falsely reporting the judge, received 10 months in prison, which is a higher sentence than all those convicted of accepting bribes, in proceedings before the basic courts.
Lawyer Radulović points out that the fact that the sentenced persons belong to a lower level of civil servants indicates that there is no adequate fight against and prosecution of corruption at a high level.
"The statistics that you show in your research are inversely proportional to the reality we live in our society, which is also recognized from international addresses, when they mark us as a society with widespread corruption in the state system," emphasizes the lawyer.
It is a systemic problem, the solution of which requires real will and knowledge, assesses Radulović.
"However, we have to decide for ourselves whether we will seriously and really tackle this problem, or whether we will continue pretending to fight against corruption," concludes the lawyer.
The focus should be on corruption in the highest positions
The report of the European Commission (EC) for 2023 notes that Montenegro must have a deterrent and effective policy of sanctioning corruption, in order to avoid the perception of impunity.
"Montenegro must additionally improve the results of investigations, criminal prosecutions, final judgments and confiscation of assets in the fight against organized crime and high-level corruption," the report says.
The State Department's 2023 report emphasizes that corruption is a significant problem in the country, and that the government has not effectively implemented a law that criminalizes cases of corruption among officials.
According to the European Convention on the fight against corruption, each country of the European Union must take the necessary measures to criminalize the giving and receiving of bribes by public officials. The Convention also covers participation in any of these forms of corruption and incitement to it.
The group of countries of the Council of Europe for the fight against corruption (GRECO) pointed out in the latest report that Montenegro is the country with the highest percentage of unimplemented recommendations regarding judges (67 percent unfulfilled).
These measures include anti-corruption measures within the judiciary - strengthening controls and supervision over the property status of judges, as well as establishing clear and efficient procedures for reporting and investigating corrupt activities among judges, as well as efficiency in processing cases - measures to speed up court proceedings, reduce the backlog of cases and increasing the efficiency of the courts.
"The GRECO evaluation team notes that there is currently no real focus on the risks of corruption, which are particularly faced by persons in the highest executive positions," states GRECO's opinion.
According to the report of the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of the international organization Transparency International for 2023, Montenegro has 46 points out of 100, which is an increase of one point compared to 2022. It is emphasized that the countries with the lowest results in the fight against corruption are certainly the countries that they have very low marks in the functioning of the judiciary. The report points out that Montenegro faces systemic problems of corruption, and that the weak judicial system contributes the most to this. The need for a strong, independent and transparent judiciary is emphasized in order to effectively fight corruption.
And while international organizations persistently warn Montenegro that the fight against corruption must be more effective, in Montenegro almost all the heads of the institutions that were supposed to deal with that work were arrested on suspicion of serious abuse of official position. One of the levers of that struggle - the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption is currently without a boss, because she is the director Jelena Perović recently arrested on suspicion of abuse of official position.
Former head of the Special Prosecutor's Office Milivoje Katnic he is suspected of abuse of office and war crimes.
Former President of the Supreme Court Vesna Medenica she is accused, among other things, of mediating that cases before the courts end in favor of private companies, and that she received bribes for that...
However, judging by the way these processes have started, the obstruction and constant postponements of the search, we will have to wait a long time for justice and an effective fight against corruption at all levels.
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