US: Constitutional appeals received during the previous convocation

The Constitutional Court of Montenegro, in accordance with Article 61 of the Media Law, sent a response, or additional information, regarding the article "The State Pays for 12 Overlong Trials" published in the daily newspaper and on the "Vijesti" portal on Saturday, May 16, 2026.

"Regarding the eleven cases for which the European Court of Human Rights found a violation due to the length of the proceedings before the Constitutional Court, we point out that these are constitutional complaints received in the period 2018-2022, i.e. from the period of the previous convocation of the Court. Additionally, these 11 cases had already been concluded before the Constitutional Court at the time when the European Court requested a statement from Montenegro, in accordance with the previously adopted Case Resolution Plan," they said.

They add that, appreciating that every constitutional appeal must be decided in a timely manner, the President of the Constitutional Court, Snežana Armenko, upon assuming office, set as one of her goals the completion of cases that had been going on for a long time.

"In the past three years, the Constitutional Court has resolved four and a half thousand cases, while in the same period the European Court of Human Rights communicated precisely these 11 cases due to the length of the proceedings. We point out that at this moment the Constitutional Court has only 180 unresolved constitutional complaints from 2024, while the rest are unresolved from 2025 and the current year, which best speaks of the level of promptness achieved compared to the period when it was the subject of increased attention of the Court in Strasbourg," they point out.

They say that the Constitutional Court achieved this result even though it is operating with an incomplete judicial composition and a shortage of advisory staff, whose position is not adequately recognized financially.