The Government has instructed the Ministry of Finance of Montenegro to pay Belgian businessman Jean-Luc Dumortier 3 euros from the current budget reserve, no later than July 2025, 3.650, based on the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
The Information on the Execution of Three Decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, which was considered by the Government today, stated that Dumortije appealed to the Court in Strasbourg for a violation of the right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, "due to the repeated and insufficient explanations of the Higher Court in Podgorica when deciding to freeze his bank accounts and prohibit him from disposing of his property in Montenegro, despite two decisions of the Constitutional Court of Montenegro that established a violation in that regard."
A Belgian businessman and owner of a land complex on Spas Hill above Budva, where he intended to build a golf course, was arrested in June 2022 by order of the Podgorica Higher Court, upon a request from Switzerland, for extradition for criminal proceedings. The extradition was approved at the end of November 2022.
Dumortier was the honorary consul of Belgium in Montenegro, and his private business in Montenegro had been the subject of an investigation by the Swiss prosecutor's office since 2015. At that time, the High Court blocked all of his assets in Montenegro, and the blockade was also placed on his bank accounts at the request of the Swiss prosecutor's office.
Dumortier was charged by the Geneva Canton Prosecutor's Office with the criminal offense of mismanagement of funds.
According to the European Court's decision, Montenegro is to pay Dumortije 3.150 euros in compensation for non-pecuniary damage and 500 euros in costs and expenses, plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicant on those amounts.
"In the event that these amounts are not paid within the above-mentioned period of three months, the State of Montenegro is obliged to pay interest on them, from the date of expiry of that period until the date of payment, at a rate equal to the lowest interest rate of the European Central Bank for the period in which the interest is calculated, increased by three percentage points. The said payment shall constitute the final resolution of the case," reads the Information submitted to the Government by the representative of Montenegro before the European Court of Human Rights, Katarina Peković.
In addition to Dumortier, the Government must also pay two other petitioners – the Vesta Nuova company and Vera Terzić.
The Government should pay them 1.080 euros each in compensation for non-pecuniary damage and another 250 euros to Vesta Nuova for procedural costs and expenses.
"In the cases Vesta Nuova doo v. Montenegro and Vera Terzić v. Montenegro, the applicants complained to the European Court about the excessive length of proceedings before the Constitutional Court of Montenegro," the Information states.
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