Amendments to the legislation on juvenile delinquency would lead to a greater gap between the law and court practice, said lawyer Veselin Radulović, adding that in Montenegro, in order to adequately respond to all forms of criminal acts with elements of violence, it is more important to work on changing court practice.
Radulović, in an interview with the MINA agency, said that the mild treatment of the accused and court epilogues with a mild penal policy in the case of the most serious criminal offenses are encouraging for all potential abusers.
Answering the question about changes to the Law on treatment of minors in criminal proceedings that are mentioned in the public, Radulović said that in Montenegro there is a bad practice and a habit of immediately reacting to cases of serious criminal offenses with initiatives to change the law.
He added that very little is said about the bad application of existing legal solutions, which are not bad at all.
"If they were to change the law and tighten it in relation to perpetrators of criminal acts, and the practice of the courts remains the same as it is now, we will not do anything, except that the gap between legal norms and court practice will be even greater than it is now," Radulović said. .
He believes that it would be more important to work on changing the practice, pointing to the possibility that the Supreme Court takes appropriate positions and guidelines that will be binding for the courts and that will contribute to an adequate response to all forms of criminal offenses with elements of violence.
Radulović repeated that the practice is the most controversial in Montenegro.
"If it wasn't like that, we wouldn't even have an increase in these criminal acts in practice," said Radulović.
Commenting on the decision of the Appellate Court which confirmed the decision of the Podgorica Higher Court and rejected the proposal of the Podgorica Higher State Prosecutor's Office to order custody of the minor AK, suspected of the attempted murder of a student in the courtyard of the Bar gymnasium, he said that, based on what was published in the public , may doubt the correctness of such a decision.
Pointing to the court's explanation that there is no danger of escaping or hiding because it is a minor who is supported by his parents and who cannot travel outside Montenegro without the permission or accompaniment of his parents, Radulović pointed out that the defendant can hide and escape in Montenegro and that his closest relatives can help him in this.
As he pointed out, this is not a rare case in practice.
"What is a special problem with detention cases is the uneven judicial practice and court decisions that often seem to be the result of an arbitrary assessment without any basis in facts and law," explained Radulović.
According to him, when there is an incomprehensible different behavior of the court in the same or similar situations, then every decision, even the one that is legal and correct, can look questionable and suspicious.
Asked what kind of message is being sent by the fact that the suspect for such a criminal offense is still at large, and especially bearing in mind the fact that court proceedings in Montenegro often take a long time, Radulović pointed out that this message is bad in many ways.
"Inefficient judiciary is a special problem that we have been facing for decades, but almost nothing is being done to solve this problem," said Radulović.
As he added, frequent cases of the most serious crimes committed by minors or children indicate numerous aspects in which the state and society have been neglected for years.
"It is obvious that as a society we are neglected in terms of culture, upbringing and education, and this problem cannot be solved quickly or easily," said Radulović.
When asked whether the decision to defend himself from freedom after the commission of a criminal offense in such a way encouraged the suspect to continue or repeat the same behavior, Radulović said that the inadequate treatment of the judiciary in the case of the most serious criminal offenses certainly does not contribute to the suppression of such behavior in the future.
"The mild treatment of the accused and court epilogues with a mild penal policy act as an encouragement to all potential abusers to commit such crimes," said Radulović.
He believes that the protests for changing legislation and creating a safe environment in schools, organized in Bar by the family of a boy seriously injured in the school yard, are a legitimate request and pressure on the executive and legislative authorities to change legal solutions that are possibly bad.
"I repeat that this is not a key problem in the case of suppressing juvenile delinquency, which even some lawyers colloquially call peer violence," stated Radulović.
As he emphasized, a safe environment in schools would have to be provided by the Police Directorate, among other things, by returning the "school policeman".
Radulović said that the key problems are also in the judiciary's reaction to this type of crime.
"And in the absence of political will on the part of those who misuse such tragic events to provide the conditions that will allow us to have a professional and expert judiciary in a reasonable time, which will be made up of people with integrity and whose decisions will not be disputed, neither by the professional nor the lay public", he assessed is Radulović.
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