The final debate on draft laws on courts, Judicial Council and state prosecutor’s office, as well as the amendments to these draft laws filed by the MPs should begin tomorrow before the Parliament of Montenegro.

HRA believes that the public debate on these laws was insufficient and that the proposed amendments to the laws on the Judicial Council and the State Prosecutor’s Office should be more precise and comprehensive.

Unlike the Draft Law on Courts, which can be corrected with amendments, the Draft Law on the Judicial Council and the Rights and Duties of Judges and the Draft Law on State Prosecutor’s Office, if adopted in the present form, would again allow arbitrary selection in the judiciary, as they leave the criteria for promotion of judges and prosecutors incomplete.

HRA has timely appealed to all MPs to consider, prior to voting for the Draft Law on Courts, the amendments filed by MP Srđan Perić, which propose:

1. Accepting the recommendations of the Venice Commission and clearly specifying: a) that the legal positions of principle of the General Meeting of judges are not a binding source of law, b) exclusion of the possibility of “operation control” of a lower court by a higher court (it has been the practice so far that the Supreme Court judges would randomly go to lower courts and examine the work of judges), as this could jeopardize the independence of judges, and there is no justification for it in view of introduction of the mechanism of regular assessment of the work of judges;
2. Preventing threats to the independence of judges by limiting some of the proposed possibilities for the president of the court to inspect case files;
3. Prescribing a 48 hour deadline for the parties and their representatives to inspect the court file instead of three days.

MP Srđan Perić also proposed amendments to the Draft Law on Judicial Council, which amendments, if adopted would:

– Prevent political influence to the judicial Council by disabling that political party members or officials, or those who were at these positions 10 years prior to running for the function as a member of the Council become its members; providing detailed provisions on dismissal of members of the Council from deciding on all matters which could represent other kinds of conflict of interest;
– Specify on what basis and how the “general ability of judges to exercise judicial functions” is being evaluated, and therefore prevent arbitrariness in decisions of Judicial Council members;
– Maintain the criteria of “worthiness” for discharging duties of judicial office, which has been removed from the Draft Law (but assessing it with “worthy” or “unworthy” and not from 1 to 5, as is currently the case);

Thank you for your attention.

HRA team