The Basic Court in Podgorica annulled the decision on the appointment as unlawful. Boris Raonic for the General Director of Radio Television of Montenegro (RTCG) from September last year.
Judge Katarina Janković she accepted the lawsuit Andrijan Kadija i Zarko Bozovic, ordering RTCG to make a new and legally based decision on the selection of the Director General from the registered candidates who meet the requirements under the Public Competition from July 2024, within eight days from the date of the judgment becoming final.
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Courts have previously ruled on several occasions that Raonić was illegally elected as the Director General of RTCG in 2021 and 2023.
He resigned from that position in July last year, was then elected acting director, and was appointed to a full term in September.
This followed the amendment of the Law on the National Public Broadcaster, including the requirements that the Director General must meet - five instead of ten years of work experience in management positions in areas relevant to the performance of the activities of the Public Media Service (journalism, art, culture, audiovisual media activities, sociology, history, law, economics, etc.).
The Basic Court ruling issued on July 11 states that the Council's decision to appoint Raonić as director is unlawful because of the work experience he gained through a previous unlawful appointment, which was the decisive criterion that set him apart from all other candidates in the competition.
"According to Article 5, point 8 of the Labor Law, work experience means time spent in employment and professional training in accordance with the law, in the qualification of the level of education... Therefore, in accordance with the cited legal provision, it clearly follows that work experience is time spent in employment. Namely, the fact that work experience is also acquired through volunteering, as well as working on occasional and temporary jobs, however, this does not affect a different decision in this legal matter... In this specific case, it is not about work experience that was acquired through volunteering, working on temporary and occasional jobs, but about work experience that the selected candidate had in a management position, for which he was illegally elected," the verdict states.
The judge determined that, since an illegally established employment relationship cannot be legalized, the court found that the RTCG Council, when deciding on the competition, could not have taken into account the work experience that Raonić had acquired illegally. All the more so, he claims, since it was precisely because of the defendant's illegal actions that he was able to perform the duties of the general director.
The court pointed out that, pursuant to the Law on the National Public Broadcaster - Public Service and the Statute of RTCG, it is clear that the Council has the discretionary right to choose which candidate to appoint as the Director General. However, Judge Janković notes that this right is limited by objective criteria and does not presuppose its arbitrariness in making decisions, but rather that there must be specific, clear and valid reasons for the criteria that were considered when making the decision.
"Also, the selection decision cannot be based on the violation of the rights of another, that is, care must be taken to ensure that when selecting candidates in situations where they meet all general and specific conditions set out in the competition, other criteria that are assessed are assessed equally for all candidates who applied," the ruling states.
The judge concluded that, since RTCG only valued Raonic's work experience, and not Kadija's, who also performed the duties of general director, it follows that they did not apply the same criteria to all participants in the competition.
The judgment also states that when making its decision, the court took into account that the Labor Inspectorate had determined that Raonić had five years of work experience for the election of the General Director in accordance with the Law on the National Public Broadcaster and that with a level of education qualification VII1, he had six years, three months and 13 days of work experience. However, this did not influence a different decision, because it is within the jurisdiction of that court to examine the legality of the disputed decision.
Raonic announced yesterday, as reported by the RTCG portal, that until the verdict becomes final, he will perform his duties conscientiously, professionally and with integrity.
"I believe that this verdict cannot become final, because I expect the appeals process to take into account the arguments and case law, including cases from RTCG itself, where actual performance of duties was recognized as relevant experience," said Raonić.
President of the RTCG Council Veselin Drljević did not answer questions from "Vijesti" yesterday regarding the verdict.
Politicians to remove Raonic
Marijana Camović-Veličković, a former member of the RTCG Council, said yesterday that the most logical thing would be for that body, unanimously as it made the decision on the election, to remove Raonić from the usurped position of director general. In this way, she believes, those who are to blame for the now four-year agony and lawlessness would do the only right thing in their mandate.
"But, since experience teaches us that this will not happen at any cost, I call on politicians from the ruling parties to force Raonić to resign himself. This amount of institutional embarrassment, apart from being unprecedented, cannot benefit anyone and it is high time for the ruling majority to start distancing themselves from the unqualified staff they have surrounded themselves with. That this is possible, that they have that influence, is shown by the example when the same politicians forced Raonić to propose himself for a salary reduction, which at that time was the highest in the public sector, so that it was 'dropped' from 4.000 euros to 3.200 euros upon his request to the Council," concluded Camović-Veličković.
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