Delayed justice is dangerous justice

If the Constitutional Court would not soon be completed and working at full capacity, it would reduce the possibility of protecting human rights because the number of constitutional appeals would increase - which protect those basic rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights and Freedoms.

This follows from the statements of yesterday's candidates for judges of the Constitutional Court, who were heard before the Constitutional Committee of the Assembly. In the Parliament, the procedure for the election of four judges is underway, for which 19 candidates applied for the competition.

"There is a danger, it is not realistic at the moment, but if the institutional crisis continues, it may lead to an ineffective legal remedy," said the president of the Association of Lawyers and one of the candidates for Constitutional Court judge yesterday. Branislav Radulović.

With this, among other things, he answered the question of the MP whether a constitutional appeal can turn into an ineffective legal remedy.

Anything that lasts longer than three years raises the question of to what extent and which rights are protected, Radulović added.

He expressed the expectation that the Court will be completed and that, as he said, it will succeed in regaining its institutional authority and social position.

He said that in addition to the election of four judges, electronic sessions should be introduced and the number of advisers should be increased from 34 to 54.

Radulović stated that there are 3.800 pending cases in the US, of which 96 percent are constitutional appeals. "It is a direct protection of human rights," he said.

The candidate for judge commented on the current situation regarding the changes to the law, which postponed local elections in several municipalities. He said that "delayed justice is dangerous justice", alluding to the fact that the Court did not make a timely decision on the regulation that part of the public is contesting.

"One component of the protective mechanism will absolutely be denied because when all previous possibilities according to election commissions, appeals, objections and so on are exhausted, then the last instance is the Constitutional Court. That component will be disabled if it happens. On the other hand, people can ask the courts for compensation for the violation of sovereignty in this sense, so that the state monitors the damage, because the responsibility lies with you as members of parliament - that the state pays for the damage, because it denied the right of citizens to protect their right in relation to elections and voting rights", he stated.

Prophet Andrija Popović (Liberal Party) recalled the latest informal information that Russia has invested millions of euros in parties from different countries, stating that the Democratic Front is also on that list.

He asked Radulović, who is also a member of the Senate of the State Audit Institution, whether he discovered traces of that money during the audits of the party's financial reports.

The answer was that the SAI audits the disposal of state money, and that what the deputy is talking about is the work of the State Prosecutor's Office and the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption.

Former adviser to the president and prime minister Jovan Kojičić when asked if he sees something problematic in the adoption of the so-called Zeta laws, i.e. in the independence of the Municipality of Zeta in the middle of the election process, he said:

"I think that rewriting the electoral will and creating such laws during the election process violates people's rights and that should not happen. During the election process, to change what is called the principle of legal security, equality, I absolutely would not vote for it, for me it is a violation of rights. I don't think that is in accordance with the Constitution."

Action for Human Rights yesterday called on the Constitutional Committee to urgently conduct interviews and propose candidates for the Constitutional Court to the Assembly so that, as they stated, they could be voted on already at the session on October 3.

They reminded in the statement that the suspension of the work of that court due to the lack of quorum makes it impossible to protect electoral rights and other human rights.

With the departure of the judge Miodrag Iličković in retirement, the Court has three judges out of the seven judges prescribed by law, because previously three more judges were retired, and the Assembly did not elect new ones.

"Block means that it is impossible to decide on appeals related to the election for which the Constitutional Court is competent from the moment the election is announced (appeals of voters, candidates and submitters of electoral lists in connection with candidacies, voter lists, up to the election results against the decision of the State Election Commission ). It was impossible to decide on 250 initiatives and proposals for the evaluation of constitutionality and legality, as well as to decide on conflicts of jurisdiction, etc. Decisions on almost 3000 constitutional appeals for the protection of human rights, as many of which are pending in the Constitutional Court, are seriously threatened, because the consensus of the remaining three judges is currently necessary for making decisions on them, and it is known that the consensus of the judges in the three-member panel in the current practice was often absent (in the absence of consensus, a general session with at least four judges decides, and the fourth judge is no longer in the court)", the HRA said in a statement.

They reminded of several published advertisements and the procedure that has been going on since the end of 2021, during which no judges were elected in the Assembly. "This justifiably enabled the conclusions that selfish party interests threaten the protection of human rights of an immeasurable number of citizens," HRA states.

The Constitutional Committee has heard six of the 19 candidates so far. The session continues on Wednesday, when they should appear before the deputies Dragana Đuranović (former protector of the property interest of the state) i Suleiman Gucci (lawyer).