The long-standing judges of the Constitutional Court, with decades of experience, do not differentiate between the termination of office by force of the Constitution and retirement, the President of the Constitutional Court Snezana Armenko announced tonight.
She reacted to the allegations of three judges, Budimir Šćepanović, Desanka Lopičić and Dragana Đuranović, that Armenko, in cooperation with the president of the Constitutional Committee, "in violation of the Constitution and the Law, submitted data on the age and length of service of judges outside the session of the Constitutional Court".
On December 11, Armenko sent a letter to the Parliamentary Committee in which, on the occasion of the address of Committee President Jelena Božović, she stated the birth years of all six judges of the Constitutional Court.
Based on that, Božović announced at the Board session that Šćepanović, Lopičić and Đuranović have acquired the condition for pension, according to the Pension and Disability Insurance Act (PIO) and that, in accordance with the Constitution, their judicial function ends.
Armenko's response is transmitted in its entirety:
"Given today's announcement by my colleagues, unfortunately, I am forced to react, both in terms of the title itself and its content, since it does not reflect the actual state of the Court's leadership. Not wanting to burden the public with facts that are already well known, since During my entire career, I have tried to express my opinions and views in a transparent and well-argued manner, I emphasize that as the president of the Constitutional Court I have a professional and moral obligation to preserve the integrity and dignity of the Constitutional Court of the court, but also of the judges themselves, especially if untrue and incomplete information is presented to the public.
The fact that such information is presented to the public by the just-signed judges, protecting only their personal interests and wanting to trample constitutional norms and moral postulates of law, obviously with the aim of degrading the position of the president of the Constitutional Court, is worrying.
In this direction, for the sake of objectively informing the public, I emphasize the following: The allegations that I sent a notification to the Constitutional Committee of the Parliament of Montenegro on my own initiative, nor in agreement with the president of the Constitutional Committee of the Parliament of Montenegro, contrary to any law, are not true.
Namely, on 10.12.2024. year, the president of the Constitutional Court was addressed by the president of the Constitutional Committee of the Parliament of Montenegro, in order to provide information regarding certain data of all judges of the Constitutional Court. In response to the letter, the president of the Constitutional Court submitted information for all six judges of the Constitutional Court, exclusively the date of birth and years of service, which information was the only one requested and only provided to the president of the Constitutional Committee. All judges of the Constitutional Court were informed about the content of the response, and upon their oral request, the request of the President of the Constitutional Committee and the response to such a request were delivered to them.
Such an address of the President of the Constitutional Court to the President of the Constitutional Committee of the Parliament is not unknown to these judges, since one of the judges who signed this statement, the then President of the Constitutional Court, Budimir Šćepanović, also, at the request of the then President of the Constitutional Committee of the Parliament of Montenegro, submitted the same information - years of life and years of insurance for one judge, who at that time met the conditions for the termination of the judicial function according to the Law on PIO.
Precisely guided by such practice of the previous President of the Constitutional Court, at the request of the President of the Constitutional Committee of the Parliament of Montenegro, I wrote a letter with the same content as the then President Budimir Šćepanović, whose content consists only of technical data, without expressing my position, which is not was not even wanted.
However, since the undersigned judges have raised certain important issues, I would like to inform the public that the same judges are well aware of my consistent position, which I publicly stated regarding the termination of office of judges of the Constitutional Court and the application of the PIO Act, not the Labor Act.
I will remind the public and citizens that the different provisions of the Labor Law and the PIO Law regarding age and years of service are, at the present moment, a consequence of the majority decision of these judges on the unconstitutionality of Article 17 paragraph 1 of the PIO Law, on which occasion I, as a judge, singled out an opinion that is well known to the public.
In this sense, I strongly deny the claims in the text itself, which refer to my professional integrity, but also to the degradation of the Constitution and constitutional norms and lawful behavior by the President of the Constitutional Court, with an open question, whether the goal of this announcement is really the protection of the Constitution, legal order and the rule of law, or exclusively the protection of personal interests.
I leave it to the public to judge.
Regarding the allegation that in this particular case it is about the illegal retirement of three judges, I note with regret that long-standing judges, with decades of experience, do not differentiate between termination of office by force of the Constitution and retirement.
In the end, I hope that all legal doubts regarding this issue will be resolved both within the Constitutional Court and before the competent state bodies, exclusively in accordance with the Constitution, the current legal order, transparently, without sensationalistic and tendentious announcements. reaction Armenko.
Note: In the previous version of the text, it was incorrectly written that Snežana Armenko sent a letter to the Parliamentary Committee on December 11 in which she informed them that Šćepanović, Lopičić and Đuranović had acquired the condition for pension, according to the Pension and Disability Insurance Act (PIO) and that they, according to the Constitution, the judge's function ends. We apologize to Ms. Armenko and the readers for the error.
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