Šaranović initiates proceedings before the Supreme Court: Illegal appointment of Radović cannot remain in force

The administrative court took the view that I cannot be a party to the proceedings, even though my rights as the only legal proposer of the acting director of the police were violated, the minister says.

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Šaranović, Photo: Government of Montenegro/Saša Matić
Šaranović, Photo: Government of Montenegro/Saša Matić
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

Minister of Internal Affairs Danilo Šaranović (Democrat) announced that he will initiate a procedure before the Supreme Court for an extraordinary review of the decision of the Administrative Court, which dismissed as illegal his lawsuit against the Government due to its decision to appoint Aleksandar Radović as police chief.

Answering the questions of "Vijesta" sent to the address of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he said that he would do so using the right guaranteed by the Constitution. In the highest legal act (Article 20) it is written that everyone has the right to a legal remedy against a decision that decides on his right or interest based on law.

"It is clear that we cannot talk about the rule of law if we have as an active absurd situation in which the entire legal public considers a decision illegal, and for it to be legally binding, without the possibility of checking its legality... I believe that it is in the public interest that must respond to the need to eliminate illegal decisions from the legal system, which I claim was not done in this case, because the court did not even consider my lawsuit, but took the position that I cannot be a party to the proceedings, even though my rights as the only legal proposer were violated" , Saranović assessed.

The Administrative Court announced yesterday that it rejected Šaranović's lawsuit as inadmissible, stating that the minister appears as a plaintiff in the dispute, even though none of his rights were decided, nor was any of his rights or legal interests violated by the Government's decision. Because of this, the court did not even go into the assessment of the merits of Šaranović's lawsuit.

The legal expert explained to "Vijesti" that the Supreme Court in this case cannot go into the essence of the dispute, but only decide whether the minister is a party to the dispute, then confirm that he is not, or, if he considers that he is a party to the proceedings, to return the case To the Administrative Court for re-decision.

Šaranović filed a lawsuit on March 28, claiming that two weeks earlier, after rejecting his proposal for Lazar Šćepanović to become head of the police, the executive power illegally authorized Prime Minister Milojko Spajić (Europe Now Movement) to propose a new candidate, that he illegally proposed Radović and that because of this, that police official was illegally elected to the position of acting (acting) director of the Police Administration (UP).

According to the Law on Internal Affairs (Article 16 paragraph 4), the minister is exclusively competent to submit to the Government a proposal for the acting director of the UP, and the executive power as a collective body gives consent or not to such a proposal.

Šaranović therefore asked the court to cancel the decision on the appointment of Radović, and as the reasons for this, he cited incorrect application of substantive law, violation of procedural rules and wrongly determined factual situation.

He told "Vijesti" that he had never commented on court decisions before, so he would not do so now, as a minister. He said that the Administrative Court did not go into the merits, that is, it did not decide whether the election of the police chief was conducted in a legal or illegal manner.

"Contrary to that, the court was only concerned with whether they could be a party to the proceedings, and it only determined that they could not," adds Šaranović.

The minister states that he thinks that the Montenegrin legal system must have a model for reviewing the legality of all decisions made by state authorities, and that the Constitution guarantees everyone the right to a legal remedy. He says that immediately after the election of the acting director of the UP, the professional public in Montenegro was "uniquely of the opinion that the procedure was carried out contrary to the law".

"More specifically, that the procedure was carried out contrary to Article 16 paragraph 4 of the Law on Internal Affairs, which explicitly stipulates that the Acting Director of the Police can be elected only on the proposal of the Minister of Internal Affairs. On this occasion, I don't need to remind you that this procedure was not carried out on my proposal, but that by the conclusion of the Government, this competence was illegally transferred to the Prime Minister", Saranović reminds.

Radović's appointment to the post of UP head culminated in a months-long smoldering conflict between the Europe Now Movement and the Democrats regarding staffing in the security sector. That is why the Democrats pledged their support to the Government until receiving the IBAR (Report on the Fulfillment of Interim Benchmarks), which is expected in June.

Claimed to be a party to the proceedings

Part of the lawyers argued that Šaranović does not have an active identification (legal authority) for the lawsuit, but that it could have been done by one of the candidates who were not elected as police chief, but Šaranović stated in the lawsuit that his identification derives, among other things, from the provisions of the Law on the administrative dispute (Article 10 paragraph 1). They state that the plaintiff in an administrative dispute is a natural or legal person who believes that a right or legal interest has been violated by an administrative act or other administrative activity.

In the lawsuit, he assessed that it is not disputed that he is a party in administrative proceedings because the process of selecting the chief of police was conducted according to his proposal, "and the obtained status of a party in administrative proceedings, according to already established court practice, cannot be lost in an administrative dispute".

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