The focus of the work of the judges of the criminal department of the Court of Appeal will be the completion of cases in the field of organized crime and corruption, said the President of the Court of Appeal of Montenegro, Mirjana Popović.
Of the total number of cases, criminal and civil, there were 2.129 in progress, 96 percent were resolved, while only three and a half percent were unresolved at the end of last year.
During 2024, the court received 33 cases in the field of organized crime and corruption, and 27 were resolved by the end of the year.
"The total number of unresolved cases is 75 at the end of December 2024, of which 32 are 'red envelopes', or three-year-old cases. Since January 2025, these cases have been the focus of the work of the judges of this court. The deadline for their completion is March 31, 2025," Popović said at a press conference where the annual work report for the past year was presented.
She added that although there are 32 old cases, the judges' focus is on completing them. She stated that the influx of cases to this court is expected to increase significantly during 2025, and that it will be monitored closely.
The journalists focused on the fact that the Supreme Court of Montenegro noted an increased number of cases for the protection of legality last year and determined that the High Court in Podgorica and the Court of Appeal of Montenegro violated the law in favor of the defendants in several cases, several of which were in the field of organized crime.
Popović said that she had noticed that there was a lot of public controversy surrounding the Supreme Court's decisions, following the requests for protection of legality filed.
"When I took over the position of President of the Court of Appeal in April last year, I was aware of the Supreme Court decisions in which a violation of the law was found in favor of the accused. This situation is the subject of my attention. I started analyzing it and noticed that through the judicial information system I could not easily obtain data on how many requests for protection of legality were filed in previous years and what types of decisions were made based on them, and what the situation was with the previous year 2023. In my address to the Supreme Court and the Judicial Council of Montenegro, I requested that such Supreme Court decisions be counted towards the quality of a judge. And that has been changed. Now such a Supreme Court decision is counted towards the quality of a judge as negative and will affect the assessment of the quality of that judge's work, and that assessment is carried out by the Judicial Council."
When asked by "Vijesti" what the consequences are after it is determined that the law has been violated in favor of the accused, the following was answered:
"In that situation, the court proceedings cannot be repeated. I initiated a change in the way statistical data is kept, which is considered negative statistical data for the judge and will affect the assessment of the quality of work. If the quality of work is unsatisfactory according to the prescribed standards, the judge's unsatisfactory work will have its own consequences prescribed by law," said Popović.
The court case against the defendants for the murder of Slavoljub Šćekić, an official of the Ministry of the Interior of Montenegro, which is pending before the Court of Appeal, is being tried continuously. The President of the Court of Appeal stressed that she understands the public's need to know when it will be concluded. The last hearing was postponed due to the deteriorating health of one of the defendants. She expects it to be completed within the legally prescribed deadline and that the public will be informed.
She agrees with the journalist's statement that the Montenegrin courts have a lenient penal policy.
When asked by a journalist whether it was a hindrance that judges from the special department who leave cases in the field of organized crime unresolved responded to the advertisement for judges of the Court of Appeal, the President of the Court of Appeal replied:
"The Court of Appeal is short of judges in both civil and criminal cases. How the newly elected judges will be assigned depends on what the needs are at the time the missing judges are elected. As for the colleagues who applied, it is their right to apply for that vacancy. Whether they leave unfinished cases behind or not, how that will be assessed, is within the jurisdiction of the Judicial Council. I have no authority, so I have no right to express my opinion," Popović concluded.
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