Courts cannot temporarily seize someone's assets unless they clearly establish that they significantly exceed that person's lawful income and there is no temporal connection between the acquisition of the assets and the criminal offense charged.
This is stated in the reasoning of the Supreme Court, which rejected as unfounded the request for protection of legality filed by the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office (SPO) against the final decision of the Higher Court in Podgorica from June 2025, which partially lifted the temporary security measures - restrictions on the disposal or use of property, while criminal proceedings are ongoing - in relation to the real estate of the defendant Milivoje Katnić in Danilovgrad.
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The Supreme Court, the reasoning states, accepted the conclusion of the Higher Court that there is no temporal connection between the criminal offenses charged against the defendant Katnić and the construction of real estate in the Cadastral Municipality of Grbe in Danilovgrad, because it was determined that the buildings were built in 2010, or 13 to 14 years before the initiation of criminal proceedings, which, as it is emphasized, is particularly significant when considering the nature of the criminal offense and the time of its commission.
The reasoning further states that the Supreme Court, having considered the case files and the allegations in the request, assessed that the High Court correctly applied the law when it lifted these interim measures. The Court specifically pointed out that the State Prosecutor's Office did not specify in its proposal what part of the property was considered illegal, when it was allegedly acquired, nor did it provide specific data on the amount of material gain that would have originated from criminal activity.
The verdict states that the prosecution's documents mainly focused on analyzing the defendant's income since 2019, while ignoring the fact that the defendant had provided evidence of the legal income he had generated since 2005, including the period when the disputed buildings were built.
The court also emphasized that the prosecution had not proven the existence of a clear disproportion between the defendant's lawful income and the value of the property whose temporary seizure was requested. According to the court, no comprehensive financial analysis of the total income and property had been conducted, nor had the court been enabled to determine whether such a disproportion existed at all.
The judgment further stated that the prosecution had not identified specific money flows, nor had it presented evidence that the assets were increased, transformed or maintained with funds derived from the alleged criminal acts. The court noted that the mere fact that the assets had a higher value was not sufficient to link them to criminal activity.
The Supreme Court, referring to the relevant case law of the European Court of Human Rights, for this legal jurisdiction, pointed out that interim measures of security represent a serious restriction of the right to peaceful enjoyment of property, and that they may be imposed only if there are clearly established, concrete and verifiable reasons. Otherwise, such measures would have the character of a preventive sanction, which is not their legal purpose. The Court also stated that the request for protection of legality, as an extraordinary legal remedy, does not serve to re-examine facts and evidence, but exclusively to examine whether the law has been violated in final court decisions, in order to ensure a uniform and correct application of law and legal certainty. It was also pointed out that the request for protection of legality does not represent a continuation of a regular legal remedy. In the specific case, the Supreme Court found that the decision of the High Court contained neither significant violations of criminal procedure nor incorrect application of the law.
Based on all of the above, the Supreme Court concluded that the request of the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office was unfounded and decided to reject it in its entirety, the reasoning of the verdict states.
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