Candidate for judge of the Constitutional Court, Marko Blagojević, announced today that there is a long wait for decisions on constitutional appeals, and that he fears that they will be lost as an effective legal remedy.
He said this at today's session of the Constitutional Committee of the Parliament of Montenegro, where consultative hearings of candidates for judges of the Constitutional Court continued.
Blagojević said that, after graduating from college, he got a job as an intern at the Basic Court in Nikšić, and that after passing the bar exam, he was appointed as an advisor at the same court, but also that in 2010 he was appointed as a judge at the Basic Court in Herceg Novi.
"When I came to that court, I was assigned a criminal section and I worked on it with another colleague for about a year and a half, and we reduced that section to about twenty cases, and already in 2012 I was reassigned to the executive section, which was not at an enviable level. If you will believe it, they were cases from 1985," Blagojević pointed out, adding that after that, he was elected a judge at the Basic Court in Nikšić, where he was assigned to the civil and analytical sections.
As he said, since 2022 he has been a judge at the Higher Court in Podgorica, where he is a judge for juveniles.
He added that he was the co-author of a scientific paper on the surrender and removal of a child and the role of guardianship authorities, in which he dealt with the comparative practice of countries in the region and the European Court.
Bosniak Party (BS) MP Admir Adrović asked Blagojević what motivated him to run, but also how he would speed up the resolution of the backlog of cases.
Blagojević responded that he has a natural motive to advance, while a judge "who is not a careerist remains at the same level."
"My wish is to contribute to the work of that court with my knowledge and expertise in terms of faster resolution of cases and preservation of constitutionality, but above all to work on respecting human rights and freedoms. And in order to improve the work of that court - I, as a judge, can only do so through diligent and hard work. My working days do not last eight hours, but also in the afternoons and on weekends. If you want results, you have to work. The issue of improvement is a matter for the President of the Constitutional Court. If I were elected, I would work on efficiency by introducing a norm. However, a balance needs to be struck between number and quality," he said.
MP from the Europe Now Movement (PES) Darko Dragović asked Blagojević whether there is a conflict between the Constitutional Court and other courts in terms of certain legal understandings, with special reference to children's rights, but also to make an analysis of the Constitutional Court's actions regarding children's rights, and to express his position on the fact that judges do not use their legal right to initiate proceedings ex officio when they see an anomaly in society.
The candidate for judge responded that there is a long wait for decisions on constitutional appeals, and that he fears that he will come to a situation where it will be lost as an effective legal remedy.
"Regarding the Constitutional Court's decision on children's rights, I have not looked at their practice, but I am aware that one of my cases was before the Constitutional Court, and it concerned children's rights," said Blagojević.
Blagojević said that the practice of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is that their decisions are based on six postulates, including - that decisions must not be to the detriment of any party, that they must not be annulled, that they must not be unreasonably delayed, but that the court itself departed from that practice in one case.
Chairwoman Jelena Božović (New Serbian Democracy - NSD) asked Blagojević about the postponement of local elections in 13 municipalities to 2022.
"Namely, the minority government, which was then supported by the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), postponed the elections in 13 municipalities, including the capital Podgorica, which were supposed to be held in June, by amending the Law on Local Self-Government - those elections were postponed to October by amending a law that does not apply to them. The Law on the Election of Deputies and Councilors, which requires a two-thirds majority, should have been amended. The Democratic Front then submitted an initiative to the Constitutional Court to review the constitutionality of such a decision, and the Constitutional Court ruled negatively regarding the amendments to that law, but there was silence as if nothing had happened," she pointed out.
"Right now, those who present themselves as defenders of the Constitution, namely the DPS and the parties that support them, are the ones who are the loudest when it comes to protecting the Constitution, and back then they were actually someone who violated the Constitution. I'm interested in your opinion as a lawyer, what needed to be done after the Constitutional Court's decisions, and not just to ignore that opinion. And one more question - have you ever been a member of a political party," Božović asked.
Blagojević responded that he had never been a member of any political party, and that he was prohibited from doing so as a judge.
He added that he does not remember that detail from 2022.
Dragović asked whether the elections and everything that was determined by them were legal.
Blagojević responded that the initiated proceedings can be completed, even if they are suspended.
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