In the work report for last year, the Judicial Council absolutely does not pay the necessary attention to the issue of increasing the duration of proceedings, said Action for Social Justice (ASP).
The non-governmental organization said that this is the case while the Montenegrin public is witnessing that the trial of Vesna Medenica is being postponed for the 18th time, and that there is a frequent trend of postponing trials for accusations of the most serious crimes.
"In the report on last year's work, the Judicial Council absolutely does not pay the necessary attention to the issue of increasing the duration of proceedings, and one gets the impression that it does not consider this issue to be a 'red alarm'," says the announcement.
The ASP said that in the report the Judicial Council states that "an analysis of the work of the special department of the High Court in Podgorica shows an increase in the average duration of the procedure from year to year, which may indicate the complexity of the procedure, which requires more time for processing and decision making".
They stated that it should be added that "frequent scheduling and postponement of hearings, as well as the volume of evidentiary material that is not concentrated during the procedure, but is proposed at different stages, can increase the time required to resolve the case".
"In the narrative part, the Judicial Council does not state how many days the duration of proceedings was prolonged on average, but the tabular presentation illustrates that from 226 days in 2021, the average duration of these proceedings, in the following year 2022 there was an increase to 368 days, and last year it lasted for 482 days, which is more than double in just two years," ASP said.
As they said, the public's attention is particularly focused on those cases, where procedures for some of the trials for the most serious forms of crime are being conducted, but also in which some of the former prominent public officials in the country are tried.
The ASP pointed out that it is indisputable public interest to end the cases as soon as possible, but it is common knowledge that the trend of delaying trials has further deepened this year as well.
"In this sense, it is incredible that the Judicial Council does not see this issue as a big problem, and bearing in mind that it does not delve into the explanation and search for all the causes of this problem in detail, but rather sticks to dry evaluations," the statement says.
It is stated that the fact that mostly the media public only deals with continuous postponements of numerous trials, which have the greatest attention of citizens, indicates that the decision-makers must deal with the issue as soon as possible and determine its real background.
"In this sense, it is also surprising that the competent committees of the Assembly have not yet dealt with this issue and initiated control hearings," the statement added.
Instead, as stated by the ASP, the parent committee of the Assembly recently, focusing on the statistical data presented in the Report on the work of the Judicial Council, accepted that report and recommended that it be adopted at the plenum.
The ASP added that the Report shows that the backlog of cases at the end of last year was over 64, which is a clear indicator of the devastating state of the court system in the country.
"And the Judicial Council mainly uses the argument of an insufficient number of judges acting, while deeper observations, evaluations and recommendations for getting out of the unenviable situation are missing," added the ASP.
They pointed out that, if the legislative chamber accepts that Report of the Judicial Council, it will be an indicator that politics accepts the devastating state of the judicial system in the country for granted, and without a clear strategy on how to change the situation in the branch of government, which for years has been characterized from numerous addresses as the weakest institutional link, which does not deliver justice to citizens.
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