Begović's lawyers are not an address for damages: Who did not protect the interest of the state?

The president of the Bar Association, Zdravko Begović, said that he understands the anger of certain ministers towards lawyers in disputes where the state paid large court costs for lawsuits by employees, but that the key question is who gave them a chance for that and did not protect the state's interest.

Begović told "Vijesta" that he received information about such court proceedings from the ministers of defense Predrag Bošković and interior affairs Mevludin Nuhodžić.

The MUP, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Justice are at the top of the list, where the state paid millions in costs because it lost procedures with employees. In some cases, the lawsuits were worth less than the court costs, so Nuhodžić and Bošković ordered the determination of responsibility for that, addressing it to the lawyers as well.

And the president of the Supreme Court, Vesna Medenica, recently reproached certain lawyers for being behind litigation cases in which two, three or five euros are demanded from the state, while court costs were several hundred euros. She explained that it is necessary to determine how much the lawyers in those cases received in the name of expenses.

Begović says that prosecutors should investigate every violation of the law, but that "we should focus more on the cause, not the consequence."

"It is not in dispute that they initiated procedures for small value disputes and charged costs that sometimes exceeded the value of the dispute, but the heads of state agencies did not act in accordance with the law at all, even though they were aware that the employees were entitled to these compensations. They didn't do anything to pay them off," says the president of the Chamber.

Begović explains that after the first court verdicts in which civil servants were awarded work allowances, the responsible heads of the ministries did not take any action.

"Judgments were like the Holy Scriptures. After that, lawyers file lawsuits on the same basis, and nobody in the state reacts and says stop it, we will pay the money to the employees. That's why I think that the responsibility should be borne by those who allowed the lawyers to initiate such proceedings," explains Begović.

He recalls that there was a possibility of settlement.

"Why didn't they react, they acted on inertia, and only when the court costs piled up did they start shouting at the lawyers," the lawyer says.

He asks the ministries "who gave the lawyers a chance and did not protect the interests of the state".

Two lawyers reported for violating the code of ethics

Bošković and Nuhodžić submitted reports to the Bar Association for violation of the code of ethics against the two lawyers, which were prosecuted by the disciplinary prosecutor, Begović said.

He promises to process reports of violations of the code, but claims that it is a replacement of theses.

"It is high time that someone in the state authorities remembers to raise such an issue and put an end to the reckless spending of state money," reminds the President of the Chamber.