Illegally elected the executive director

The Administrative Court overturned the Energy Regulatory Agency's decision to appoint Novak Medenica as executive director.

The decision on the election of the director was made on March 18, 2016, and the Administrative Court annulled it at its session on March 23 this year, following a lawsuit filed by BI

"By the contested decision, paragraph 1 of the enacting clause, NM, B.Sc.Ecc, was elected as the executive director of RAE for a mandate period of four years. According to paragraph 2, the Board of the Agency will, on the basis of this decision, conclude an employment contract with NM, which regulates the rights and obligations of the person appointed on the basis of work in the performance of the function of executive director, while paragraph 3 stipulates that point 1 of this Decision will be published in the Official Gazette. is in the judgment.

The prosecutor contested the legality of the RAE's decision, due to, as it is added, a violation of procedural rules and incorrect application of substantive law. He states that he submitted an application for the competition for the election of RAE director, which was published on December 14, 2015, in the Pobjeda daily newspaper in accordance with the Law on Energy.

He claims that he fully met the conditions prescribed by the competition, stressing that during the procedure, the new Law on Energy came into force.

"RAE made a decision, which is illegal, because the defendant authority referred in the introduction to the Law on Energy, which was not valid at the time the decision was made, as well as to the new Law on Energy and the new Statute of RAE, while in the explanation it stated that it entered the new Law on Energy, and that it is a terminological difference between the titles director and executive director", the prosecutor says.

RAE, in its response to the lawsuit, points out that it stands by the allegations from the contested decision, stressing that the only difference between the new and old law is in the name of the governing body, so it suggested that the court reject the lawsuit as unfounded.

"After considering the case files, evaluating the allegations of the lawsuit and the response to the lawsuit, the court found that the lawsuit was founded," the verdict states.

It is added that examining the legality of the contested decision, the court finds that the decision was made in significant violation of the rules of procedure from Article 226 paragraph 2 point 7 of the Law on General Administrative Procedure, because the reasons given in the explanation, considering the state of the case files and the applied regulations, do not refer to the correctness of the decision given in the enacting clause.

"The reasons in the explanation, as well as the reference to the applied legal regulations, create ambiguity, because conflicting laws have been applied, given that one of the applied laws has ceased to be valid, that is, the other has entered into force, so it is unclear which is the law applied in the specific case, which is the reason for the court to accept the lawsuit and annul the contested decision due to the committed serious violation of the rules of procedure", the court states.

"RAE is trying to eliminate the illegality by responding to the lawsuit"

RAE, as stated in the verdict, tries to eliminate this illegality by answering the lawsuit, but the answer to the lawsuit cannot replace the deficiency that makes the contested decision illegal.

The Administrative Court stated in its judgment that in the retrial, the second-instance authority, in accordance with the judgment (Art. 57 of the ZUS), will make a new, legal decision in this matter.

The RAE did not answer the questions of "Vijesti" whether they will announce a new competition for the election of the executive director.