The fourth report of the NGO Action for Human Rights (HRA) on the work of the Prosecutor's Council shows that there has been progress in the prosecutor's organization, especially compared to what was published in the 2022 report. This, as they explained, primarily refers to the reasoning behind the decisions of that body, which are now mostly well elaborated.
The analysis established that this year alone, the Prosecutor's Council decided on 42 elections and promotions through reasoned decisions. Of the 85 prosecutors who worked at the end of last year, 114 are now active, and four more should be hired at the beginning of 2025, according to the HRA announcement.
"This means that by the end of next year, we will reach the number of prosecutors that was close to the number foreseen for work in prosecutor's offices," said Supreme State Prosecutor Milorad Marković during the presentation of the analysis.
He reminded that 141 prosecutors are necessary for the work.
According to the HRA, an outflow of staff was observed through the analysis. In the last three years, a quarter of state prosecutors have left their positions by resigning, but there is room for optimism, as the NGO says, because there is interest among young lawyers in joining the prosecution service - 11 of them applied for 24 positions in the last competition.
The Supreme State Prosecutor pointed out that the goal is not only to fill positions, but to hire quality personnel.
"The only criterion that existed was the criterion of quality. All the decisions show that, and it is the only and basic principle for all future public advertisements, for elections, the advancement of prosecutors, for the selection of heads of state prosecution offices," said Marković.
The analysis also concluded that the Special State Prosecutor's Office has not yet been allowed to move into the old Government building, "even though more than two years ago a conclusion was adopted by which that building was given to it for use".
"In this direction, we have sent an additional request to the Government of Montenegro that the state authorities, primarily the Property Administration and the Ministry of Urbanism and Spatial Planning, be more up-to-date and active in the implementation of this activity because it is necessary to solve the accommodation capacities for SDT, but also for More the prosecutor's office in Podgorica," said Marković.
He also pointed out that they should have communication with the executive power, but also with local administrations, so that the basic state prosecutor's offices in Pljevlje, Rožaje and Bar get adequate space to work.
The Minister of Justice, Bojan Božović, said that they cannot solve all the problems of the prosecutor's office in one year, not even the one concerning the lack of space, but that he can rightfully criticize the executive power from which he comes, according to HRA.
"It is unacceptable that we have not solved the issue of spatial capacities for this long. First of all, for the Special State Prosecutor's Office and the Special Police Department. "I hope that they will do it in the shortest possible period and that we will once again solve the relocation of the Ministry of Justice in order to transfer those premises to the State Prosecutor's Office," said the minister.
The report shows that the Prosecutorial Council considered 2023 complaints in 199, and as many as 2024 in 204, and these are not all the decisions it made.
"The volume of work indicates the same thing as with the Judicial Council, that the professionalization of the function of at least some members should be seriously considered," said HRA director Tea Gorjanc Prelevic.
The author of the analysis, lawyer Veselin Radulović, spoke about the missing members of the Prosecutor's Council. He recommended that two members be elected as a matter of urgency, but according to the old law, not as decided by the Parliamentary Committee for Political System, Judiciary and Administration, which, according to the provisions of the new law, requested the name of a candidate for a position in the Council from the Bar Association.
"Somewhere it is logical and quite natural that the missing members are elected in the same way as those they are supposed to replace. If the procedure is carried out as initiated by the Committee for the Political System, then we will have a Council that is partially elected according to the old law, and partially according to the amendments to the law," said Radulović.
Andrej Raspopović, representative of the Bar Association, had several dilemmas regarding their obligations when it comes to proposing candidates.
"The law does not prescribe that we announce a competition. How do we choose a member? Let's decide on our own initiative and say - that's our representative and he goes straight through," stated Raspopović.
The secretary of the Committee for Political System, Judiciary and Administration Slavica Mirković explained that the Chamber should announce a public invitation and inform them about the name of the candidate, after which this information will be forwarded to the plenum. The final word on him, she says, will be given by the deputies.
The HRA report shows that in relation to the evaluation of prosecutors, the practice has also changed for the better. It was concluded that "not all state prosecutors are rated only with excellent grades". However, they believe that work on the Law on the State Prosecutor's Office should continue in this area as well.
"The law stipulates that the quality of the work of state prosecutors is evaluated based on the adopted or rejected proposals on the determination and extension of custody, adopted complaints on the rejection of criminal charges, legally binding judgments of regular courts, as well as on the basis of the number of convictions and accepted appeals," Radulović said.
VDT Milorad Marković said that they are nearing the end of the determination of the criteria for evaluating prosecutors, with the fact that he noted that it is difficult to evaluate how the prosecutor acts.
In this regard, prosecutor Danka Živković said that the work of prosecutors does not depend only on them.
"Many of the parameters of prosecutors' work depend on the court. And with regard to the confirmation of indictments and other decisions... These are some things that should be kept in mind," she said.
Prosecutor Đaletić believes that there should be special criteria for evaluating prosecutors, but that some of the instructions that already exist can be helpful in their work.
"We discussed in the normative commission that it would be good to impose an obligation on all prosecutors to act in accordance with the instructions of the supreme state prosecutor. These are instructions of a general nature," she claims.
In relation to determining the responsibility of state prosecutors for disciplinary offenses and ethics violations, the main objection of the HRA is that the work on the Law on the State Prosecutor's Office "which was needed, was not completed until June when that law was adopted (to obtain the IBAR)".
"Disciplinary offenses are not specified enough, so that even some serious violations of the law can go unpunished, and the descriptions of disciplinary offenses still coincide with ethics violations." In the last two years, the disciplinary responsibility of the state prosecutor has not been determined in any case, the analysis stated.
A member of the Prosecutor's Council, Stevo Muk, stated that there is a "main problem" regarding the complaints submitted about the work of prosecutors.
"The source of some of our wanderings is a very narrow and vague legal definition of jurisdiction," he said.
That is why Marija Vuksanović, from the Council of Europe, asked what the competent commission of prosecutors should decide on.
"What is the type and content of complaints on which the commission can decide and has the sense to decide? Without entering the zone of ethical, disciplinary or criminal responsibility...", she said.
That is why one of the recommendations of the HRA regarding complaints is to amend the Law on the State Prosecutor's Office regarding the description of disciplinary offenses, "to ensure that they are, on the one hand, different from violations of the Code of Ethics, and on the other, to provide for sanctions omissions that lead to adverse consequences for the administration of justice".
The report was prepared within the framework of the project "Judicial reform to the rule of law" implemented by the HRA with the support of the regional project "SMART Balkans - Civil society for a connected Western Balkans", implemented by the Center for the Promotion of Civil Society (CPCD) with partners, and financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs affairs of Norway.
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