Lawyers' Association: There was undoubtedly a violation of the law when awarding the July Thirteenth Award

The Association of Lawyers of Montenegro, which has spoken out in response to what they say is a large number of requests for legal interpretation of the provisions of Article 17 of the Law on State Awards, as well as the publicly stated position of Montenegrin scholar Dragan Hajduković and the PEN Center that there has been a "gross and reckless violation of the Law", announced that paragraph 3 of Article 17 of this Law clearly and unambiguously states that: "only one annual Thirteenth of July Award may be awarded in one field".

They add that paragraph 1 of Article 17 of the Law on State Awards precisely lists "areas", so if it is true that "all three awards were awarded for only one area", they say that it is unquestionable that there has been a violation of the provisions of the law.

"Without entering into a public controversy about the quality of individual winners and objections to the content of this year's selection, we clearly confirm the position of Prof. Dr. Dragan Hajduković and the PEN Center that there was an unquestionable formal violation of this Law by the Jury for the award, and any further procedure related to the awarding of the awards would be questionable from the point of view of legality.

"Therefore, repeating the voting procedure, i.e. a new selection by the Jury for the award, in order to eliminate the evident violation of the Law, is legal and the only way to avoid serious devastation of this exceptional state recognition," the Lawyers' Association said in a statement.

It is added that the jury, for its part, would be obliged to publicly apologize to the persons whose names were made public, demonstrating that this, as the association says, obvious illegality was not intentional but an oversight.

"If the Jury itself does not eliminate these evident violations of the Law, the Parliament of Montenegro is obliged to intervene, which, in accordance with Article 19 of the Law, appoints the president and six members of the Jury.

"We also note that the July 13th Award is presented on the eve of the Statehood Day of Montenegro and is presented by the President of the Parliament, who is obliged to ensure the legality that has been unquestionably violated here," the statement concludes.