Secretary General and head of the Democrats parliamentary group, Boris Bogdanović, called on the Court of Appeal to publicly announce its arguments, which refute the arguments of the Podgorica Higher Court that it had provided them with complete files in the case of Vesna Medenica without procedural shortcomings, suitable for further decision-making.
He says that the Higher Court fulfilled its procedural obligation by delivering the decision of January 28 to one of Medenica's defense attorneys, attorney Zdravko Begović.
"The High Court in Podgorica and the Court of Appeal, unfortunately, continue to play ping-pong with the case files of Vesna Medenica, who was sentenced to ten years in prison by a first-instance verdict. How else to qualify the events between the High Court and the Court of Appeal, in which the High Court twice (February 06 and 09) delivers the case files of Vesna Medenica, and the Court of Appeal returns them to the High Court twice, on the same days, as incomplete. All this has the consequence that the Court of Appeal has not yet decided on the appeal of the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT), which requested that Vesna Medenica be urgently sentenced to ten years in prison, along with an immediate measure of detention," Bogdanović announced.
He recalls that the Court of Appeal considers the case file of Vesna Medenica incomplete, because there is no evidence that the Higher Court's decision was delivered to her lawyer Zdenko Tomanović via regular mail at his address in Belgrade.
"In contrast, the High Court in Podgorica, in its statement of 09.02. this year, points out that the decision of that Court rejecting the SDT's request to order detention of Vesna Medenica, was delivered to the SDT, as well as to the accused Vesna Medenica and one of her defense attorneys, attorney Zdravko Begović, and to Vesna Medenica's other attorney, Zdenko Tomanović, who did not attend the announcement of the verdict, the decision was sent via e-mail, as the High Court had otherwise communicated with that attorney during the previous part of these proceedings. As I did in my statement of 09.02. this year, I again recall the provision of Article 195, paragraph 5 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which reads: 'If a document is to be delivered to the defense attorney of the defendant, and he has more than one defense attorney, it is sufficient to deliver it to one of them.' As the announcement of the High Court of 09.02. clearly stated that one of Vesna Medenica's defense attorneys, attorney Zdravko Begović, received the decision of the High Court in question, it seems that the High Court concludes with arguments that this procedural assumption has been met, in accordance with the cited provision of the CPC. I publicly call on the Court of Appeal to communicate to the general public its argumentation that refutes the argumentation of the High Court that it has provided them with the complete files of the case of Vesna Medenica without procedural shortcomings, suitable for further decision-making, and especially in light of the cited provision of Article 195, paragraph 5 of the CPC, which stipulates that, when a document is to be delivered to the defense attorney of the defendant, and he has multiple defense attorneys, it is sufficient to deliver it to one of them. The High Court fulfilled this procedural obligation by delivering the documents to attorney Zdravko Begović," Bogdanović announced.
It is worrying, he said, that the "previously mentioned procedural complications" have resulted in the fact that even after 13 days since Vesna Medenica was sentenced to ten years in prison, but not to detention, the second-instance court has still not decided on the SDT's request to urgently impose a detention measure on her. Bogdanović added that it is unprecedented in practice for a ten-year prison sentence not to be immediately imposed as well as detention.
"The need for the Court of Appeals in this case to urgently decide on the appeal of the SDT, which is requesting the imposition of a detention measure on Vesna Medenica, is given additional context by the fact that Vesna Medenica's son, who was sentenced to 10 years and two months in prison in the same case, has become a fugitive from justice and is currently unavailable to the competent authorities. The competent court should not allow suspicion to spread among the public that the procedural complications that delay the decision on the SDT's request to order Vesna Medenica to be detained are occurring and being tolerated, so that, perhaps, the mother would follow in her son's footsteps," the statement reads.
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