It is devastating that there are such serious accusations about the illicit influence of the head of the Higher State Prosecutor's Office Beautiful Medenice to the then basic prosecutor Vukas Radonjić ended due to formal deficiencies allegedly made by the deputy disciplinary prosecutor in the indictment proposal.
This was announced to Vijesti by the direct adviser of the Action for Human Rights (HRA). Marija Vesković, answering questions about the decision of the Prosecutor's Council to reject the request for the dismissal of Medenica due to the shortcomings of the indictment proposed by the deputy disciplinary prosecutor Tanje Nišavić.
The disciplinary prosecutor established that the head of the Higher State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica inappropriately influenced the then primary prosecutor in the case of opening the border for accused Belgrade criminals Veljko Belivuk i Marko Miljkovic, asking him in an "inappropriate and rude" way to release the police officers arrested in that case.
"State prosecutors are independent in their work, and this independence is guaranteed by the Constitution and the Law on the State Prosecutor's Office, which additionally stipulate that the work of the state prosecutor's office must not be carried out under anyone's influence. It is true that in the prosecutor's organization there is the possibility of giving instructions for handling certain cases, and this is because the instructions can be given by the prosecutor who is hierarchically above the prosecutor to whom he is giving the instructions. In this particular case, the head of the Higher State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica was able to give instructions to the head of ODT Podgorica, then Nikola Boricic, who could give instructions to the basic state prosecutor, then Vukas Radonjić. However, the law also foresees the possibility to refuse that instruction if it is illegal or unfounded and to request that it be given in writing. According to the statements made by the head of the Podgorica Police Department, he refused to act on the verbal order of the head of the Higher State Prosecutor's Office, after which she directly called the primary prosecutor and, according to his statement, in a rude and inappropriate manner asked him to release the unjustly arrested police officers, which it means that in that case it can be an illegal influence on the work of the prosecutor, and in the end, the criminal offense committed is illegal influence", stated Vesković.
She, however, said that on the other hand, it was also surprising that the Prosecutor's Council did not return the indictment for amendment.
"The fact is that such a possibility is not prescribed by the Law on the State Prosecutor's Office, but it is also a fact that there is no legal obstacle for it. Various other acts and submissions, such as an indictment, an indictment, a constitutional appeal, a proposal or initiative for the evaluation of constitutionality and legality, an election appeal, a proposal to initiate proceedings to determine whether the president of the state has violated the Constitution, etc. so we don't see why the Prosecutor's Council could not do the same in this case".
She stated that the deputy disciplinary prosecutor could re-submit a new indictment proposal, which would be without defects, and thus, she claims, the constitutional principle "ne bis in idem" would not be violated, which stipulates that no one can be tried again nor can convicted again for the same criminal offense: "Given that the trial of the managers would officially begin only after the indictment was approved."
"Also, there is a possibility that the procedure starts from the beginning, that is, that maybe someone else initiates the initiation of the procedure. For example, in addition to the Minister of Justice, the proposal for the dismissal of the head of the Higher State Prosecutor's Office can also be submitted by the acting VDT as well as at least three members of the Prosecutor's Council, which is a new solution foreseen by the amendments to the law from 2021 (Article 126). Also, in this particular case, it could be a more serious disciplinary offense that exists when someone uses his position to pursue private interests, the interests of his family or those close to him (Article 108 paragraph 3 point 7). This serious misdemeanor could turn into the most serious offense for which dismissal is provided for if it is determined that it caused significant damage to the reputation of the state prosecution (Article 108 paragraph 6 point 5) and in that case such a procedure could be initiated by the acting VDT, the Minister of Justice or the Commission for Monitoring the Implementation of the Code of Ethics, two of whose members are also members of the Prosecutor's Council (Philip Jovovich i Đurđina Nina Ivanovic)", said Vesković.
As she said, there are options, the only question is whether there is a will to shed light on the case institutionally in a way that will leave no doubt that anyone is spared responsibility.
She said that the HRA hopes that such a decision by the Prosecutor's Council does not necessarily mean putting an end to the whole case, just because the Prosecutor's Council failed to take a concrete position and state whether there was a violation of the law in this matter.
"The sessions where the prosecutors involved in the case were heard were closed to the public, and the Prosecutorial Council, which has the legal authority to take positions regarding the threat to the independence of state prosecutors, expressed a general position exactly one month ago, in just one sentence, that it was "stated that certain problems in the functioning within the prosecutor's organization are noticeable..." without clearly determining whether in any case there was an impermissible influence on certain prosecutors".
Vesković explained that the members of the Prosecutor's Council also have the option, in case they do not have the capacity to investigate all the circumstances of the case, to submit the case to the State Prosecutor's Office, which would examine whether the case contains elements of the criminal offense of illegal influence, inducing illegal influence and abuse of official position. .
"It should be noted that the Higher State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica would be responsible for these crimes due to the fact that they are public officials as perpetrators. As it is the prosecutor's office headed by a manager against whom proceedings should be initiated, it would be necessary to delegate the case to the Higher State Prosecutor's Office in Bijelo Polje," Vesković assessed.
The issue of Medenica's dismissal was raised by the Minister of Justice Marko Kovač, after the stormy session of the Parliamentary Committee for Justice, where the question of the behavior of the prosecutors, but also of the policemen in the Belivuk case, was raised, when Boričić and Radonjić accused the head of the Higher State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica.
Several prosecutors, police and government officials were heard at the parliamentary body, and due to the fact that someone opened the border for members of the Kavac clan, who a few months earlier, according to SDT's accusations, directly participated in the murder of two people in Spuz.
Prosecutor Radonjić then said in front of the deputies that the UP did not listen to his verbal order to arrest two police officers, and that, after he had given the written order, Medenica called him around midnight and shouted in a raised tone and demanded to let the officers go. UP...
His words were also confirmed by Boričić, the head of the Podgorica ODT at the time, who stated that Medenica called him three times unsuccessfully asking for the same thing, and that after that she "turned on Radonjić"...
At the recent session of the Prosecutor's Council, the majority of the members of that body found that the indictment does not contain a description of the offense from which the legal characteristics of the reason for dismissal arise, such as, among other things, a description of the action and the manner of execution of the action that the head of the Higher State Prosecutor's Office is charged with , but also that the attribute or function performed by the appointed person was not specified: "And all of which represent essential elements of the reason for dismissal".
Medenica told Vijesta after the session that the Supreme Court said everything with its decision and that it would not comment on the case.
They could return the proposal for amendment
It is important that the Prosecutor's Council, in order to improve the transparency of its work, publishes the indictment proposal and its decision on the rejection of that indictment proposal so that everyone can assess whether there are major or minor shortcomings, stated Vesković.
She added that in any case HRA believes that the procedure could have continued if the Prosecutor's Council had simply returned the indictment to the deputy disciplinary prosecutor for amendment.
"If she had repeated the omission when resubmitting the proposal, then we could talk about a potential 'intention to make the procedure meaningless'. What we can say from our experience so far is that even the earlier proposals for determining disciplinary responsibility that were accepted were not particularly elaborate and detailed," Vesković said.
Prosecutor Tanja Nišavić announced yesterday that the indictment proposal in the factual description is in everything identical to the one given in the proposal of the Minister of Justice Marko Kovač.
I could not change the factual description
"I emphasize this for the reason that Article 113 paragraph 2 of the Law on State Prosecution stipulates: 'The disciplinary prosecutor is bound by the factual description of the disciplinary offense for the determination of disciplinary responsibility'. Therefore, it is a provision of an imperative nature, which in this particular case means that I did not have the legal authority, nor the possibility to change any part of the factual description given in the minister's proposal for the dismissal of the manager... It follows from the above that I acted in the mentioned procedure with all the necessary care, conscientiously, responsibly and in accordance with the law. I believe that the Prosecutor's Council in the given announcement regarding the said procedure had to give an overview of the facts that I pointed out, because with the given announcement, and especially the public appearances of individual TS members, negative attention from the case that was the subject of the procedure, unfairly and unfoundedly focused on my the treatment of me personally. This is especially so if you bear in mind that I did not attend the TS session, and therefore I did not have the opportunity to present my legal position. Without the intention of commenting on the decision of the Court of Justice, I believe that in the case that it had conducted the procedure, it had the possibility to possibly change the factual description in its decision, according to the result of the procedure that would have been conducted, in the same way as the court does in court proceedings. according to the Code of Criminal Procedure", stated Nišavić.
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