Yesterday's elections for the European Parliament showed that the policy of EU enlargement is relative because the right is getting stronger, so whether Montenegro will essentially be a state of the rule of law depends exclusively on us, announced the vice-president of the Movement for Change (PzP) and former member of parliament in the Parliament of Montenegro Branka Bošnjak.
"Getting some kind of swag and satisfying a mere form by adopting legal solutions, which are flawed even by the proponent's own admission, is extremely frivolous and means almost nothing for the rule of law. No transition was carried out, there was no review, the institutions, the judiciary and the prosecutor's office were captured according to by autocratic standards, the announced vetting is nowhere in sight, so regardless of the adoption of the IBAR law, Montenegro is miles away from the rule of law and justice that the people eagerly await," she said.
She added that the exclusivity of Prime Minister Milojko Spajić does not allow the amendment improvement of the IBAR law, "not even legally-technically, is completely unreasonable and incomprehensible."
"Unfortunately, the ruling majority, which was unreservedly servile to him, agreed to it, which undermined the dignity of the Parliament and very consciously, in the deafening IBAR euphoria, obeyed his dictates and adopted some solutions that were much worse than the existing ones, and some of them were even very debatable in terms of constitutionality. Obtaining the IBAR is only significant from the aspect of unblocking the accession process, and the essential opinion of the European Commission in this geopolitical situation, and especially of the Venice Commission, which are subject to various influences, is extremely relative," she added.
She emphasized that she fully supports the politically responsible move and the voice of reason of President Milatović, "who returned the Law on the Judicial Council and Judges for reconsideration, because it unconstitutional, and from the point of view of discrimination, very questionable the so-called Pažin norm from 2018 from of transitional and final provisions directly incorporated into the basic text of the law."
"It enables the members of the Judicial Council from the ranks of distinguished lawyers to serve up to six years, depending on the political will and mood of the qualified majority in the Parliament, even though the Constitution explicitly prescribes four years. The former president of the Constitutional Court from the ranks of distinguished lawyers, university professor Mladen Vukčević then resigned to the membership and presidential position in the Judicial Council, precisely because of the objection of conscience on the issue of this unconstitutional norm. Why are the so-called legal experts who were very sensitive to much smaller shortcomings not restored because even with its changes, we have returned to a situation where already proven unhealthy trade union solidarity in the unreformed Prosecutor's Office will have the main say in the Prosecutor's Council," she pointed out.
According to her, bearing in mind the existing composition of the Government and Parliament and the inconsistency and more than disgusting adaptability, to the point of unrecognizability, of certain political actors, "once great advocates of radical cuts in the judiciary, from vetting to a special court for organized crime, I doubt when and if will there be any correction of these laws at all."
"Invoking and publicly expressing the position in the Parliament that we will see what effects the adopted model will have and that it will be changed if necessary means a complete absence of reform capacities. Whether by chance, but I doubt it is intentional, here we are returning to the era of Medenič and Katnić After all, the recent re-election of Medenica's staff, judge Željka Jovović, as the president of the Basic Court, is a proof. skillfully used by Medenica's personnel for framing in the judiciary. Refreshing, nothing," she added.
She stressed that she hopes that this act of Milatović will make sense, as she stated, at least to those "who in 2018 were very vocal and voted against this decision by Pažin to reconsider their decision and not allow everything that we fought for together to become meaningless."
"I sincerely and essentially support all efforts to unblock the EU integration process, but all this seems to me that someone wants under the auspices of IBAR, not to say by abuse of IBAR, to play a "step forward and back two" regarding the rule of law and struggle against crime and corruption, and the evidence is the weak and highly questionable new long-awaited Law on the Prevention of Corruption and the Law on Amendments to the Law on Confiscation of Property Gains from Criminal Activity," she concluded.
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