The fact that the Montenegrin judiciary must urgently do something about the different court practices that allow drug dealers to go free is also evidenced by the fact that the Court of Appeals released one person from Podgorica and one from Pljevlja from two and a half years in prison for drug trafficking because one word was missing from the verdicts of two higher courts, namely that they did so "unauthorized".
Now the Supreme Court has ruled that such appeal decisions were unlawful, but they cannot change them to the detriment of the defendants, so they will not go to prison even though it was previously determined that they committed a crime.
Thanks to the old "two lawyers, three opinions", the repeatedly convicted Podgorica resident Milan Mihailović, although guilty of selling cocaine, can celebrate because the Court of Appeals granted him two and a half years of freedom.
Mihailović was convicted of drug trafficking by the judge of the Higher Court in Podgorica, Veljko Radovanović, in May last year, but the Court of Appeals finally acquitted him because the word "unauthorized" was missing from the ruling.
"Both the indictment and the verdict must state that the action is being taken without authorization, because the aforementioned activity constitutes the act of committing a criminal offense only when it is carried out without authorization. The law regulates when the production, processing and trade of these substances are permitted and who can carry them out, while in all other cases it is about the unauthorized performance of these activities," the Court of Appeal announced.
However, Supreme Court judges ruled at the end of March that Mihailović's release was unlawful, thus approving the Supreme Prosecutor's Office's request for protection of legality.
"The substance in question - cocaine - is on the list of narcotic drugs prescribed by the Regulation on Establishing the List of Drugs, from which it follows that the trade and possession of the substance in question is prohibited to natural persons, which is why the absence of the word 'unauthorized' does not mean the absence of illegality, as the second-instance court incorrectly concluded," the Supreme Court said.
To make matters worse, even though the Supreme Court has determined that the Criminal Code was violated, it cannot change the acquittal, says lawyer Veselin Radulović.
"Final verdicts cannot be touched because they are a settled matter, in order to respect the principle of legal certainty, because that has always been and will always be the case, and such a verdict cannot be changed," Radulović pointed out.
This is not the only case where defendants are released due to different court practices.
Television Vijesti reported in November last year that judge Dragan Mrdak of the Bijelo Polje Higher Court sentenced Irfan Kriještorac from Pljevlja to two years and five months in prison for drug trafficking, but an appeal finally acquitted him because the word "unauthorized" was also missing from the verdict.
It turned out that the law was again misinterpreted, so in this case too the request for protection of legality was accepted without changing the final judgment.
"What is most worrying is that such cases are happening and contribute most to the decline in public trust in the work of the courts and the judiciary as a whole. It would be good if these Supreme Court rulings were a guide and indicator of how the Court of Appeal should act in the future," said Radulović.
Judge Vesna Moštrokol headed the two panels of the Court of Appeal that rendered erroneous verdicts.
Cases like this inevitably confirm that one word changes everything.
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