The Commission of the Supreme Court of Montenegro completed the control of the work of the Special Department of the High Court in Podgorica, which was marked as the weakest link in the court system in the reporting statistics of the Judicial Council.
The Public Relations Service of the Supreme Court replied to "Vijesti" that the work has been completed and that the Report on the work of that department has been prepared.
"The Commission for Control of the Work of the Special Department of the High Court in Podgorica completed the Report on the work of this department, with the aim of drafting guidelines for improving the management of trials, with a focus on serious and organized crime," the answer reads.
They stated that the Supreme Court of Montenegro will present observations today at a workshop with an international partner on the state of organized crime and corruption cases, which are pending in the Special Department of the High Court in Podgorica.
At the beginning of June, the Supreme Court formed a Commission of seven members, as part of the Plan for improving the efficiency of the work of the High Court in Podgorica, which provided a measure to control the work of the Special Department, which hears and tries the most important cases in the field of organized crime, corruption and war crimes.
The plan also proposed changes to the internal organization of the court in order to improve the ability of judges to manage trials more effectively and to more actively control the conduct of proceedings.
In the report of the Judicial Council for the year 2023, it is stated that the Special Department of the High Court in Podgorica had 176 cases in its work last year, of which 33 were resolved, and 143 remained unresolved, i.e. 81,25 percent.
The small number of decisions is particularly worrisome if one takes into account the large influx of indictments in very complex and voluminous cases submitted to that department by the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SST) in the past two years.
The fact that there are serious problems in the work of the Special Department of the High Court in Podgorica is shown by the average number of days in which court proceedings last, the frequent postponements of proceedings, but also the large number of defendants who, after three years of detention, got their freedom because the court panel did not did not even issue a first-instance decision.
The average duration of proceedings in the Special Division of the High Court last year was 482 days, and that figure doubled from 2022, when the average duration was 226 days.
The length of proceedings is one of the main indicators of judicial efficiency, especially in cases of organized crime and high-level corruption and war crimes...
The increase in the number of unsolved cases was also influenced by the inefficient management of the most sensitive procedures, and the case against a criminal organization, which included the former president of the Supreme Court. Vesna Medenica, where the start of the procedure is delayed as many as 18 times, is the best example of numerous procedural deficiencies.
"Analyzing the work of the Special Department of the High Court in Podgorica, we observe an increase in the average duration of the procedure from year to year, which may indicate the complexity of the procedure, which requires more time for processing and decision-making. "Frequent scheduling and postponement of hearings, as well as the volume of evidentiary material that is not concentrated during the procedure but is proposed at different stages, can extend the time needed to resolve the case," states the report on the work of the Judicial Council for 2023.
Analyzing the work of higher courts, the Judicial Council concluded last year that the average workload of judges had increased.
In the Special Department of the High Court in Podgorica, the outflow of the most experienced judges, who were responsible for the most complex cases, continued during 2023.
By the end of 2023, there were as many as 44 cases with so-called "red covers" in the Special Department of the High Court in Podgorica, i.e. procedures older than three years.
The Judicial Council in the report for last year states that the possible causes of the decrease in efficiency are the increase in the number of complex cases that require more time to process, the lack of court staff or judges in relation to the increased volume of work, administrative challenges and the need to modernize the work process, but also changes in legislation that may have led to an increase in caseloads or changed processing procedures.
Will the 9th ad be the last?
Yesterday, the Official Gazette published a public advertisement of the Judicial Council for the election of the President of the Supreme Court of Montenegro.
At its session on July 5, the Judicial Council made a decision to announce the 9th advertisement for the selection of the most important position in the judicial branch of government.
According to the public announcement, the candidate for that position must meet the conditions stipulated in Article 46 of the Law on the Judicial Council and Judges, and the deadline for submitting applications is 15 days from the publication of the invitation in the Official Gazette.
In mid-May, the eighth attempt to elect the president of the Supreme Court of Montenegro failed, and the Judicial Council was waiting for changes to the Law on the Judicial Council and Judges in order to announce a new public advertisement.
With the legal changes, now at the General Session of the Supreme Court, each of the judges will be able to select a maximum of three candidates from the list of applicants for the public advertisement for the most important chair in the judiciary.
The proposal for the election of the president of the Supreme Court in the future should include all candidates who received more than half of the votes from the total number of judges of the Supreme Court, and not just one who should have received two-thirds of the total number of judges of the Supreme Court.
If none of the registered candidates receives the required majority in the first round of voting, the vote will be repeated between the candidates who received more than a quarter of the votes of the total number of judges of the Supreme Court.
From September 2021, the Supreme Court will be headed by Vesna Vučković as an acting official.
On May 6, the Venice Commission stated that the appointment of acting presidents of courts should be the exception, not the rule.
With the new changes, the acting status is limited to a maximum of six months.
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