The Constitutional Court of Montenegro started the unblocking process by terminating the work of a number of judges, extending the mandate of those approaching retirement, which will create a hole and chaos in the legal system of our country, former judge of the Constitutional Court Miodrag Iličković said.
At the conference "Back to basics: European integration beyond action plans" in Podgorica, he commented on the decision of the Constitutional Court, which last week abolished the article of the law according to which the right to an old-age pension is acquired when the insured man reaches the age of 66 and the woman reaches the age of 64, and at least 15 years of insurance experience, so that now the only condition for obtaining a pension remains a full 40 years of insurance experience.
For Iličković, this is unacceptable.
"Imagine that someone at the age of 64 wants to retire. Here I didn't like it, but some women want to go. Why are you taking it from them? My proposal was that women have the right and positive discrimination should be made because women have life's burdens. Let them be given the opportunity to retire, but also be given the opportunity to continue working if they wish. Now there remains a legal void," said Iličković, as reported by Portal RTCG.
He says that this "chaos" can only be corrected by the Parliament of Montenegro.
"The worst thing is that this case has been in the Constitutional Court for over three years, and now that it is time to retire, it has become topical. When you have that kind of behavior from an institution that everyone looks at expectantly, then everything is clear. If we lower the criteria and do not force politicians to agree, the mandate of judges of the Constitutional Court is three mandates of the Government of four years each, and this time they will have ten, 12 years to decide on the most vital issues", said Iličković.
He says that if we give them power, politicians will make bad choices.
"They will choose a high school graduate as a judge, just as they declared a freshman an engineer, and we must not let this go beyond the standards. Everything as it is, let it survive and let the responsibility of the politicians surface, if we lower the criteria, one party that does well in the elections will appoint the judges of the Constitutional Court. We are not inclined to choose those who are independent from the authorities," said Iličković.
He states that we need to answer the question of whether we want the Constitutional Court or power over the Constitutional Court.
"He has enormous power and terrible authority, and imagine that he is independent of authority as well. When politicians get confused, someone has to hold the ship and say "you can't interpret the Constitution and the law". When the Constitutional Court says something, there must be legal silence," Iličković points out.
MP and member of the Presidency of the New Serbian Democracy, Simonida Kordić, said that there is a practice of directly influencing the political centers of power through the election of judges, and that is why there is no high degree of agreement on this issue.
"This is not a problem only in the Constitutional Court, but in other institutions in Montenegro. "Politics is the most important human activity, but where political positions are not decided, independence should be taken into account," said Kordić.
State Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, Bojan Božović, said that he expects that in the new report of the European Commission on Montenegro, problems in the judiciary will be pointed out and that some leaders in the judiciary have not been appointed.
"We should implement these appointments for our sake, not for the sake of the European Commission. Essential reforms in the judiciary are needed," Božović believes.
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