Will officials explain wealth in court? Ministry of Justice plans new criminal offense

Any official who cannot explain and prove the origin of the property, or justify it with official income, could be held criminally liable.

According to unofficial information from "Vijesti", the Ministry of Justice plans to, through amendments to the Criminal Code, specify the criminal offense of illegal acquisition of wealth, thus opening up space for conducting financial investigations and expanded confiscation of property.

In the department Bojan Božović They expect that this new criminal offense should produce a "strong deterrent effect" among public officials.

"The message is clear - violating anti-corruption legislation does not pay," said a source to "Vijesti", explaining that this would apply to "all property that a public official cannot justify, or cannot prove its origin."

The Ministry unofficially stated that international experts concluded that without this criminal offense (illegal acquisition of wealth), the anti-corruption normative framework cannot be adequately completed and institutional cooperation between the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (APC) and the State Prosecutor's Office, primarily the Special State Prosecutor's Office, cannot be established at an adequate level.

"Misdemeanor liability is simply not enough. The misdemeanor-administrative system of sanctions has its foundation and knows how to hit the target, but without the introduction of this criminal offense, the system was not fully implemented," says an interlocutor of "Vijesti" from the justice department.

The Ministry believes that the introduction of criminal sanctions opens up space for conducting financial investigations and emphasizes that this issue deserves special attention.

"Financial investigations can lead to the widespread confiscation of assets acquired through criminal activity, as an important repressive tool in the fight against organized and serious crime and corruption, especially high-level corruption. The introduction of this criminal offense facilitates the actions of the competent authorities and shortens the path to the desired results," the interlocutor says.

As he added, if this criminal offense were to be included in the Criminal Code, "it is necessary to amend the Law on the Confiscation of Property Acquired through Criminal Activity with this offense, or rather the provision of that regulation that defines the cases in which property gains acquired through criminal activity can be confiscated (Article 2)."

The Ministry believes that this completely opens up space for conducting financial investigations and expanded confiscation of property, but also solves the problem of retroactive application of the law in the part related to the confiscation of property gains.

"The fact is that this institute is not treated as a criminal sanction, but rather a sui generis criminal measure," the source said.

In June last year, the Parliament adopted amendments to the Law on Confiscation of Property Gains within the framework of the IBAR Law, i.e. regulations that needed to be adopted in order for Montenegro to receive a positive Report on the Assessment of Fulfillment of Interim Benchmarks in Chapters 23 and 24 (IBAR). A positive IBAR was received on June 26 last year.

Part of the public and the non-governmental sector criticized the changes, stating that they were "technical and cosmetic."

The Network for the Affirmation of the Non-Governmental Sector (MANS) has repeatedly stated that they advocate the introduction of the so-called "Italian model", which includes, among other things, the seizure of property in civil proceedings, the conduct of proceedings against property without a time limit, and a lengthy and often unsuccessful process of proving the criminal offense from which the property originated.

The Ministry of Justice announced that after receiving a positive IBAR, they would begin work on introducing this model.

Minister of Justice Bojan Božović said in July this year that work on improving the Law on Confiscation of Criminal Assets should be completed in the third quarter of this year.

He said that at the National Security Council session on July 23, the possibility of establishing a special agency to manage confiscated property was also considered, which would include the adoption of a special law that would precisely regulate its work.

The Ministry of Justice previously announced that it has certain solutions for introducing vetting in the judiciary that do not have to wait for constitutional changes.

Secretary of State in that department Sergej Sekulovic He recently told "Vijesti" that the Ministry of Justice stands firmly on the position that strengthening integrity and ethical and disciplinary responsibility (vetting) are necessary, but not as political revenge or engineering, but as a process that will strengthen integrity in the judiciary and strengthen public trust in its work.

"We have been working on specifics and we have certain models of how the law could look, which include constitutional changes, but also a solution that does not require this legal intervention," said Sekulović, responding to the question of what the Ministry is doing to comply with the recommendations of the National Security Council, which in July proposed an urgent vetting of judicial office holders and the adoption of the Law on Confiscation of Assets Acquired through Crime.

At its meeting on 23 July, the Council recommended that the Ministry of Justice, in cooperation with the European Commission, urgently prepare a model for the introduction of vetting, with particular emphasis on checking the integrity, professionalism and lifestyles of judicial office holders. The body specifically analysed the murders with the characteristics of mafia-style liquidations committed in the previous period and stated that “there is a correlation between the growth in the number of crimes against life and limb, the trend of an increase in the number of cancelled detentions, as well as the failure to issue judgments within three years”.

Vetting, a check on the assets of judges and prosecutors and their possible connections to crime, was announced repeatedly after the elections in August 2020, when the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) government was removed after 30 years.

The story of introducing vetting in Montenegro intensified in 2022 after a series of judicial scandals, the arrest of the former long-time president of the Supreme Court Vesne Medenica, former head of the Commercial Court Blaž Jovanić, the special prosecutor Saša Čađenović..., who are charged with serious crimes.

"Misdemeanor liability is simply not enough. The misdemeanor-administrative system of sanctions has its foundation and knows how to hit the target, but without the introduction of this criminal offense, the system was not fully implemented," says an interlocutor of "Vijesti" from the justice department.