Candidate for Supreme State Prosecutor (VDT) Maja Jovanovic she will not withdraw from the race for that position, although some high-ranking government officials are indirectly urging her to do so.
Yesterday, Jovanović confirmed to the Vijesta that she remains in the fight for the top position in the prosecution, saying that she has a professional obligation to follow the procedure of selection of the VDT to the end.
She did not want to comment on the recent assessment of the Minister of Justice Andrej Milović that the speed of the election of the head of the prosecution will depend on whether she withdraws her candidacy because she does not have support, which some lawyers with whom Vijesti spoke informally see as pressure on Jovanović.
"It is not appropriate for me to comment on anything at this moment, because the session of the Committee (for political system, judiciary and administration) is scheduled for tomorrow (today) and everything will be discussed in the following days. Everything I have to say, I will say at the Board", she pointed out.
Today, the board should make a decision on holding a consultative hearing of the candidate for VDT.
In two half-year terms, from February of last year to February of this year, Jovanović was the acting head of the VDT, and at the beginning of April, the Prosecutorial Council (TS) proposed her as the head of the prosecution for a full, five-year term. The proposal arrived in the Assembly in May, but the MPs have not yet commented on it.
The election of Jovanović in the first round requires two-thirds support (54 votes of deputies), which she does not have because the key actors of the ruling majority do not see her in the position of the VDT. If he does not get the votes, a second round should follow, in which the VDT will be elected from among all candidates who meet the legal requirements. Apart from Jovanović, there are others Milorad Marković i Suzana Mugoša, and a three-fifths majority (votes of 49 parliamentarians) is required for election. The second round of voting takes place no earlier than one month after the first.
With Jovanović's message that he will not step down even though he has no support and bearing in mind the stated deadline for the vote, the possibility that the head of the prosecution will be elected by the end of the year is definitely excluded, which was announced by some political actors.
Additional prolongation of the elections could also occur due to the fact that the Assembly will be in extraordinary session from January to March. Namely, since, according to the Constitution, it is convened at the request of the President of the State, the Government or at least a third of the deputies, and since, according to the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, the applicant can only propose proposals for the agenda of the session, which he authored, it is questionable whether the election of the VDT- and then he can find before the deputies. This is due to the fact that the head of state, the government and a third of the deputies are not nominators of candidates for the VDT, so they cannot demand an extraordinary session. The proposal is determined by the TS, and it is considered by the Board.
However, previous parliamentary majorities repeatedly violated the Constitution and Rules of Procedure and scheduled sessions with items on the agenda that could not be discussed in an extraordinary manner, such as the election of members of the Judicial Council and judges of the Constitutional Court.
If they do not do it this time, it would mean that the VDT will not be elected before March, and that the TS will appoint a new temporary prosecutor in the meantime, given that the prosecutors Tatjana Begović the second and last acting mandate expires on February 8 of the following year.
The acting position in VDT has been in effect since October 2019.
Some parties have already started to announce which candidate they will support. So far, the focus is on Marković, whom the Democrats have announced their support for, while the New Serbian Democracy has said that they too could vote for him.
Marković is a master of legal sciences with many years of experience in the field of rule of law - human rights, justice, criminal law and confiscation of property benefits. He worked at the Faculty of Law and as an expert/consultant on EU, Council of Europe, OSCE, UNDP projects...
Maja Jovanović has been in the prosecutor's organization for over twenty years, and on February 5, 2022, the Prosecutor's Council chose her to perform the function of acting VDT. During her acting mandate, and at her suggestion, the Supreme Court elected a new chief special prosecutor Vladimir Novović, and then several investigations were launched that resulted in indictments against former heads of the judiciary.
Suzana Mugoša is a judge of the High Court in Podgorica. She started her career in 1995 in the Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica as an intern, and in 1999 she was elected as an advisor. After five years, she resigned and was elected a judge of the Basic Court in Podgorica, and then progressed in the judicial system. She tried the "Zavala" case, and also delivered the first-instance verdict in the "coup d'état" case, in which the leader of the coalition for the future of Montenegro was accused.
The Committee today also heard candidates for the Judicial Council
The Committee for the Political System, Judiciary and Administration should also make a decision today on holding hearings for candidates for members of the Judicial Council, from among distinguished lawyers.
That body has had an unconstitutional mandate since July 2018. It lacks three members from the ranks of distinguished lawyers.
On February 23, the previous convocation of the Committee concluded the hearing of 11 candidates, but three were not proposed because the statement was postponed at the session on April 6 because all the opposition MPs were absent from the session of that working body.
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