Radonjić: Completely illegal decision for judge Mrdak

Today, another acquittal for colleagues arrives from the judiciary, this time for the judge of the High Court in Bijelo Polje, Dragan Mrdak.

The Podgorica High Court sees no evidence for the accusation of the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT) that Mrdak falsified the verdict that saved two defendants from prison.

The SDT claims that today's decision by the Higher Court is absolutely illegal and that it turns out that the Podgorica judges do not trust their colleagues from Bijelo Polje who testified against Mrdak.

On the other hand, his lawyer expects the acquittal to be confirmed by the Court of Appeal.

After three judges of the Bijelo Polje High Court, during their testimony, swore by Ostrog and St. Basil that during the decision-making process in March last year, everyone acted according to the law, the verdict from the Podgorica Special Department arrived.

Judge Dragan Mrdak did not abuse his position and did not falsify the verdict for the two defendants, behind the backs of his other two colleagues. For the defense, it is...

"The only possible decision after all the evidence presented at the main trial is that the verdict cannot be forcibly rendered without evidence," said Stefan Jovanović, Dragan Mrdak's lawyer.

They are just as clear, but with the opposite claim, in the SDT that is persecuting Mrdak.

"A completely illegal decision and the Special Prosecutor's Office will use its legal options to appeal," said Vukas Radonjić, special prosecutor and spokesperson for the SDT.

The SDT claims that on March 8 last year, a three-member panel sentenced the defendants to nine months in prison for abuse of office in business, but that Mrdak subsequently falsified this decision and issued a new verdict dismissing the charges, because the statute of limitations had allegedly expired, thus saving the defendants from prison. He was allegedly helped in this by the court reporter Sonja Marković, who was also acquitted today. Jovanović says that the court determined that this was a mistake.

"But that mistake did not have the elements of a criminal offense and all the evidence pointed in that direction," said Jovanović.

"We cannot accept that something can be justified by a judicial error. It is not disputed that a judge, like any other judicial officer in Montenegro, can make a mistake, but this is truly far from an error," said Radonjić.

At the trial, Mrdak pleaded ignorance of when the alleged verdict was passed that set the statute of limitations, claiming that his colleagues were involved, which judges Ivan Adamović and Dragan Dašić denied.

Radonjić explains why Mrdak's defense does not hold up.

"For a criminal offense for which the statute of limitations cannot apply under the Criminal Code, every judge of the High Court, in Bijelo Polje or Podgorica, must have known this, and even if they didn't know, on the day of the council session on March 8 last year, the statute of limitations certainly did not apply under the general provisions on that day," said Radonjić.

When the acquittal for Mrdak, issued by Judge Amir Đokaj, arrives on appeal, the suspended judge's lawyer hopes for one thing.

"That they simply, like the single judge who acted in this case, are guided solely by what is in the case files," said Jovanović.

The SDT, headed by Vladimir Novović, trusts judges Adamović and Dašić because their statements match the evidence, unlike Mrdak's defense.

"I don't understand why the first instance court doesn't accept them. It turns out that the Higher Court in Podgorica, which made the decision, doesn't accept the statements of its fellow judges from Bijelo Polje, or rather, it turns out that they are not telling the truth," said Radonjić.

Whether some judges are making mistakes out of ignorance or engaging in activities that are incompatible with the judicial toga will become clear in the coming months.