The conclusions of the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) regarding improvement in the respect for human rights in the institutions for persons with intellectual disability Komanski most, prison administration (Administration for Execution of Criminal Sanctions) and Special Psychiatric Hospital in Dobrota in relation to their 2008 report were expected. In these institutions HRA and its partners – the Centre for Civic Education, EQUISTA and Women’s Safe House, have conducted a comprehensive monitoring project on the course of two years (2011-2013) and submitted a total of 315 recommendations for improvement, of which 2/3 had been fully or partially fulfilled. We hope that the prison administration, Komanski most and Special Psychiatric Hospital in Dobrota will finally employ the missing professional staff, as recommended by the CPT in its latest report and fulfil other remaining recommendations.

Unfortunately, the CPT recommendations in relation to conditions in police stations are almost the same as in 2008 and so detention in police stations remains the black spot of human rights violations. Of particular concern is the lack of will to improve the situation to date. It is worth noting that HRA and partners were not allowed to execute monitoring of police stations from 2011 to 2013.

A large number of arrested persons told the CPT that they reported to the prosecutor or the judge that the police abused them and that they did not do anything about it. It is highly concerning that the practice of judges and prosecutors to turn a blind eye to reports of abuse and torture continues to date, although it had been noted already in the previous 2008 CPT report regarding the ”Eagle’s Flight” case – now before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg because of beating of alleged Albanian terrorists.

We are pleased that CPT paid special attention to the case of the still unpunished beating of the late Aleksandar Pejanović in police station in Podgorica in 2008. In this case the CPT found that the Internal Control of the Police acted unprofessionally, and that the prosecutorial investigation was ineffective as the prosecutor failed to take all measures at his disposal also with regard to the Prime minister not cooperating in the investigation. In relation to this case, the CPT urged the Montenegrin authorities to ensure protection of whistleblowers who report abuse by the police, as the case of a former police officer Goran Stanković, who was the only one to side with Pejanović, it became clear that there is no protection of whistleblowers in the Montenegrin police.

HRA calls upon the acting Supreme State Prosecutor Veselin Vučković and Minister of the Interior Raško Konjević to initiate investigation and determine responsibility of the prosecutor in charge and former members of the Internal Control of the Police for ineffective investigation into the beating of Aleksandar Pejanović, based on the CPT report, and extend the investigation in order to identify direct perpetrators and persons who ordered the crime.

HRA calls upon the Prime Minister Milo Đukanović to convene a meeting of the Government open to the public on which the CPT report will be discussed, given that the CPT stated that the important recommendations addressed in its previous 2008 report have not yet been fulfilled.

CPT report is available here.