Judges Branimir Femić and Ranka Vuković denied today that former Supreme Court President Vesna Medenica ever exerted pressure on them.
This was stated at a hearing held this morning in the High Court before the panel of Judge Vesna Kovačević.
When the court asked Femić if he had ever communicated with Medenica via SMS messages or any mobile application, the judge replied, "If there were messages between me and Medenica, we would certainly not be spared by this person who writes correspondence every now and then," alluding to "Vijesti" journalist Jelena Jovanović, who reports on Medenica's correspondence with various officials, including the judiciary.
"Vesna Medenica never asked me for anything - God forbid, she was never interested in any subject from me, and she couldn't have," said Femić.
He said that during the hearing with the special state prosecutor, he was asked if he knew Basic Court judge Nikola Bošković, who was once his expert associate, which, he said, he found very strange because he had communicated with that judge two days before the hearing, and that he thought he was under secret surveillance measures.
Three more witnesses were heard today in the case that the Special State Prosecutor's Office is conducting against the defendants Miloš and Vesna Medenica, Darko Lalović, Vasilije Petrović, Bojan and Marko Popović, Marko Vučinić, Milorad Medenica, Luka Bakoč, Petar Milutinović, Ivana Kovačević, Radomir Raičević, Marjan Bevenja, Stevo Karanikić and Goran Jovanović and the company "Kopad Company", for the criminal offenses of creating a criminal organization, smuggling, giving and receiving bribes, unlawful influence and inducing unlawful influence, abuse of official position, drug smuggling, unlawful possession of weapons, causing serious bodily harm and preventing the production of evidence.
At today's hearing, Medenica said "that a lot of water will flow until the composition of judges is formed as it was when I was the President of the Supreme Court."
Judge Ranka Vuković said that Medenica was never interested in any of her cases.
"Nor has any president done that before or after her - no one has ever called me to inquire."
She said that she was not aware of any way in which pressure could be exerted on judges, and that everything was decided by the panel, which had the right to vote as it wished, and that there were cases that were easier and more difficult to deliberate on.
"The only thing that happened was that the court president would let us know when some cases were urgent and when there was a long wait for decisions, but she never asked us for anything."
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