The capacity of state authorities to fight corruption and organized crime needs to be further developed, cooperation and dialogue between authorities and the public should be worked on, and a general analysis of specific cases should be carried out in order to assess possible selectivity - it was concluded at the third and last meeting "Together against corruption and organized crime ", which was held on October 8 in Kolašin, organized by the Organized Crime and Corruption Research Network - LUPA.
The meeting fulfilled its goal and contributed to establishing a dialogue between representatives of institutions, the media and the civil sector.
"Since 2016, a big step forward has been made for all of us with the Law on the Special State Prosecutor's Office and the formation of the Special Police Department" - believes the head of the Special Police Department, Dragan Radonjić.
He said that from the mentioned year until today, they had extensive cases that they had to form, and that the special teams got quality due to the hiring of people of credibility.
"Those teams contributed to us taking a more comprehensive look at the cases so that the prosecutors who win the cases make a legally valid decision. We laid the foundations of the fight against corruption and organized crime. Everything that has been done so far has been done at an enviable level," concluded Radonjić.
Damir Kujović, adviser to the Department for Financial Investigations of the Special State Prosecutor's Office, said that the plea agreement in cases of corruption and organized crime has proven to be effective and that they will continue to apply it.
"The benefit of the plea agreement is, above all, that it drastically speeds up the procedure. However, the law leaves it to the court to make the final decision", said Kujović and reminded those present that an agreement is not possible in cases of terrorism and war crimes.
Dragan Krapović, the Democratic MP in the Assembly, did not agree with the assessment that the fight against organized crime and corruption so far is good because, in his opinion, there is a lack of political will.
"In the coming period, there will have to be an epilogue of cases from previous years. "The new political reality will contribute to the new dynamics of resolving cases," said the Democrat deputy.
In his presentation, he reminded the audience of the cases from Budva, which, he says, have been pending for years or are still being investigated.
"I know that it is difficult and that expertise is needed when examining cases. I believe that there is a lack of agility of the institutions due to the lack of political will of the previous government", said Krapović and promised that his future actions will be in the direction of strengthening the institutions in order to reach the epilogue of the mentioned and other cases.
Jelena Jovanović, a journalist from the daily "Vijesti", believes that the communication between institutions and the public, primarily journalists, is poor because many cases have been declared secret. She also referred to the problem of disclosure of information to the public by certain media and journalists, stressing that such phenomena must not be allowed. She does not agree with the opinion that the Plea Agreement is a good mechanism.
"Plea agreements are problematic because the guilty have not returned the money and served their sentences. Others will behave in the same way", believes Jovanović.
Her colleague from the daily newspaper "Dan" Marko Vešović pointed out that gatherings like these are extremely valuable because they provide a chance for dialogue between state authorities and the media.
"It is not the journalist who is to blame, but the person who presents the information and gives the information to the media," he claims. Vešović is disappointed by the fact that political corruption has been talked about in Montenegro for more than ten years and there is not a single case in which someone has been convicted of that crime.
Igor Damjanović, who is a member of the informal group of advisers and friends of the proposed mandate for the composition of the new Government, Zdravko Krivokapić, referred to the allegations of foreign media and researchers about the regime of President Milo Đukanović as a bastion of corruption.
Representatives of the prosecution and the police were also present
"I hope that a new Government will be formed soon and that the Law on the Origin of Property will be passed in the Assembly. The only chance for Montenegro to rise from the mire affected by disastrous economic policies and the pandemic is to eradicate corruption. A discontinuity with the previous one must be made because Montenegro will not have a chance otherwise" - Damjanović, who is also a journalist of the "In4s" portal, assessed.
The Executive Director of the Center for Civil Liberties and former Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, Boris Marić, believes that there has been selectivity and stagnation in the processing of cases of corruption and organized crime at the moment when the political border has been touched.
"The average Montenegrin citizen can see the difference in treatment. It simply leaves a picture and the need to analyze the previous cases. It is necessary to open a dialogue about this because there is a great public interest", said Marić.
The coordinator of human rights and freedoms of the Civil Alliance, Zoran Vujić, was interested in whether there were cases where the police did a good job in collecting evidence, but there was no epilogue and judgments. The head of the Special Police Team replied that there were cases where he thought there would be a verdict, but that the cases were rejected.
Advisor in the Department for Financial Investigations of the Special State Prosecutor's Office, Damir Kujović, explained that it should be borne in mind that an indictment is not a verdict. Both of them were explicitly of the opinion that there is no selectivity, but that an analysis of previous cases should be done in order for the public to get an answer to that question. The general conclusion of representatives of institutions, the media and the civil sector is that everyone is on the same side when it comes to the fight against organized crime and corruption, that criticism and diversity of opinion should exist, but also that everyone should do their job professionally .
The mentioned meeting in Kolašin is part of the activities of the project "Investigative journalism - a key element of the successful fight against organized crime and corruption", organized by the Network for Researching Organized Crime and Corruption - LUPA, with the support of the Resilience Fund of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.
