A large number of complaints due to the length of court proceedings

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg receives a large number of complaints related to the excessive length of court proceedings, which forces the conclusion that the Montenegrin judicial system as a whole did not respond to the needs of a reasonable trial period.

This is stated in the Report on the work of the Office of the Representative of Montenegro before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which was considered by the Montenegrin Government on April 24.

It is emphasized that in that part, we should continue to work on raising the standards of protection of this article of the European Convention at the domestic level, in order to prevent future violations before the European Court.

It is stated that certain state bodies that participated in proceedings at the national level and whose actions and omissions led to the establishment of a violation of convention rights, are not fully aware of the significance of the financial expenditures imposed on the state.

"Those state bodies that, through their actions or omissions or the unreasonable length of conducting certain procedures, led to a violation of the Convention and the obligation to pay fair compensation to the petitioners, do not suffer any financial consequences, but the state as a whole bears those costs," the Report says.

The consequence of this, as assessed, is that the degree of individual responsibility for the costs of the state budget is often relativized from such bodies and institutions.

"Insufficient awareness of managers and officials of those state bodies can lead to continuing with the same practice that resulted in the violation of convention rights, and which directly causes damage to the Budget of Montenegro and the strategic political goals of the state, which is membership in the European Union," the representative assesses. of Montenegro before the European Court of Human Rights.

It is warned that this kind of practice continued despite the fact that last year the Government adopted the Conclusion on considering the possibility of introducing a model of financial responsibility of state bodies whose work resulted in the determination of a violation.

"The introduction of this model of financial responsibility would undoubtedly lead to a reduction not only in the duration of certain procedures, but also in a better resolution of certain requests at the national level, which would ultimately contribute to the overall prevention of future violations of the convention rights of citizens of Montenegro," the report says.

It is emphasized that the practice of other countries that applied a similar model showed a positive effect.

As stated, an increasing number of contracting states and members of the Council of Europe recognized them, so they used the issue of financial responsibility as an extremely effective tool for raising the level of responsibility and professionalism in the work of state authorities.

"Given the tendency to increase the amounts awarded as fair compensation based on judgments and decisions of the European Court, I still believe that it would be useful to consider this possibility and create a model of direct financial responsibility for violations of the Convention by domestic state authorities," says the Montenegrin representative before the European by the Court for Human Rights, Valentina Pavličić.