Prosecutors don't want ducks as judges

It took more than a year for the Prosecutor's Council to make a decision that the heads of basic and higher prosecutor's offices can be elected only twice, and not serve three or more mandates, as is the case with the president of the Supreme Court, Vesna Medenica, and several other presidents in the judiciary.

The prosecutor's council, after adopting a unified position, canceled three advertisements from 2019 for management positions in 11 prosecutor's offices, and then announced that they will soon announce new competitions for the most important positions in the prosecutor's organization in order to finally get out of the acting situation.

Acting Supreme State Prosecutor (VDT) Ivica Stanković announced at the session of the Prosecutor's Council that Article 54 of the Law on Prosecutor's Office provides that the same person can hold a leadership position twice.

"We have several candidates who do not meet these requirements. We took a common position," said Stanković.

Seven prosecutors applied for competitions for leadership positions in prosecutor's offices, who, according to the Law on the State Prosecutor's Office from 2015, have already fulfilled the legal limit of two mandates as head of one of the prosecutor's offices.

The legal dilemma was caused by the semantic change of the name "prosecutor" from the old version of the law to "head of the prosecution" - as it was formulated five years ago...

The position of the Prosecutor's Council is completely different from the controversial decision of the Judicial Council, which in the summer of 2019 allowed the president of the Supreme Court and some other presidents of the courts to have a third or even an eighth term, even though this is against the Constitution.

The decision of the Judicial Council was recently again criticized by the European Commission...

At the TS session, the managers of the ODT Herceg Novi Snježana Zejnilagić and ODT Kolašin Vojislav Grujić themselves withdrew their candidacies for new mandates in those prosecutor's offices.

The prosecutor's council made a decision that the prosecutor from Herceg Novi, Nada Paović, did not cease to be a prosecutor, because the conditions were not met, despite the fact that she turned 66 years old.

The TS believes that the discriminatory Article 17 of the Law on Amendments to the Law on Pension and Disability Insurance was passed this summer for holders of judicial functions - prosecutors and judges, and that this is not an imperative condition for retiring at the age of 66 (men) or 64 years for women. ..

Stanković explained why he believes that article 17, paragraph 1 and 2 of the Law on Amendments to PIO discriminates against prosecutors and judges compared to other professions, and that it is not in accordance with the Constitution, nor with the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.

"Article 103 of the Law on the Prosecutor's Office stipulates that the state prosecutor's office ends upon fulfilling the conditions for an old-age pension, when it comes to the conditions for prosecutors, I think it is indisputable that both the Labor Law and the Pension Insurance Law are valid, in which nowhere is the terminological when the conditions for old-age pension are met. According to the provisions of Article 17 of the Law on Amendments to the Law on PIO, the insured becomes entitled to an old-age pension when he turns 66 for men and 64 for women. It is about the acquisition of rights, the specified special conditions are prescribed as alternative, which means that the right is acquired when the prescribed conditions are met and it is realized at personal request. If this decision were imperative, then women - prosecutors, by force of law, would retire either at 64, 61 or even at 56 years and 9 months of life," explained Stanković, who cited a comparative case from Serbia when a decision was made that the position of the prosecutors ends when the working life ends.

He listed the general conditions for the performance of the prosecutor's office, which is permanent, and said that he believes that Article 164 of the Labor Law should apply to them as well, which prescribes that the employment relationship ends when the employee reaches the age of 67 and has at least 15 years of service.

Faculty of Law professor Aneta Spajić said that the discussion on this topic was very important and that she is of the opinion that a pension in relation to a woman, who is not interested in a pension at the age of 64, is not necessary, that is, it is not imperative.

"In addition to the interpretation of systemic solutions, the decisive factor for this attitude was that a mere linguistic interpretation would violate the basic constitutional principles - discrimination, on several grounds. In this way, an entire profession, which is very important, is discriminated against, and not only the profession, but also the woman. We also forgot that back in the old SFRY we ratified the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. It seems to me that there is obvious discrimination against women and professions with this interpretation, and we must not allow that. We forgot about the basic tools of methodological - legal interpretation, which is the theological goal extension - we have to start from the goal of the constitutional writer when he communicated the norms in this form", stressed Spajić.

TS members Velimir Rakočević and Sonja Bošković had the same attitude...

"The prosecutors in Cetinje are scared, we are locking the doors"

Duško Milanović, a member of the Prosecutor's Council and deputy head of the ODT Cetinje, raised an important topic yesterday - how protected Montenegrin prosecutors are at work, because neither the police nor private security have been guarding any building for years except for the headquarters of the Supreme Prosecutor's Office, the Special State Prosecutor's Office and the High Prosecutor's Office in the center of Podorica. .

He emphasized that a tragic event took place last week when DD (61) from Cetinje committed suicide when he activated a bomb in front of the prosecutor's office inside the ODT building.

"For years, no one has provided security for the prosecutors in the building, there is only a porter. It was only by chance that day that a greater tragedy was avoided. After that event, all the prosecutors in Cetinje are scared, we are locking the doors. The situation is alarming. We have to do something," Milanović said.

Acting Ivica Stanković explained that the Law on the Prosecutor's Office from 2015 stipulates that for the protection of persons and objects, a special service for security operations should be organized within the prosecutor's office or legal entities authorized for protection and security operations should be hired.

He said that VDT has been asking for money for this purpose from the budget for years, but that until now the funds have never been provided.

The plan is to find the money to solve that problem next year.