(Podgorica, 5 April 2012) – MANS representatives will not attend tomorrow’s session of the National Commission for the Fight Against Corruption and Organized Crime since they are unwilling to legitimize yet another play directed by its President, Dusko Markovic.
Tomorrow’s session is supposed to consider the recommendations from the Progress Report of the European Commission for Montenegro, which was release five months ago and to which MANS had submitted responses to in November of last year. Therefore, at tomorrow’s session, Markovic plans – along with representatives of key institutions responsible for the struggle against organized crime and corruption – to consider the EU’s recommendations from its last report a month before it is scheduled to issue a new one. The question remains, what did Markovic do during the past half-year and what is the point of such managements of the National Commission?
This behavior is merely a continuation of Markovic’s irresponsible actions, who since assuming this latest function is doing everything in his power to present himself as a reformer, while in reality the Commission persists in not using the full capacity of its jurisdiction, and what is worse, citizens have not yet received any benefits of its work until now.
Additionally, Dusko Markovic is very active as President of the Commission when it comes to obstructing its work, while misusing its powers or totally rendering them meaningless.
In this way, Markovic managed to sabotage attempts at accountability for the anti-constitutional following of citizen’s telephone communications by the police through the country’s telecom operators, using the National Commission as an alibi for his “kum,” the former Chief of Police Veselin Veljovic. Not only did Veljovic not bear any consequences for his actions, but Markovic with the support of other members in the Commission established that Veljovic had done nothing illegal while the courts had already ruled that his actions were illegal.
MANS’ initiative received the same treatment when they tried to establish why Montenegrin courts continuously violated the Law on Free Access to Information and hid data on corruption related convictions, in order to hide the fact that no high level rulings for corruption exist – which is something that Brussels has insisted upon continuously.
Markovic effectively obstructed the discussion about the fact that the Special Investigative Team, even though it is constantly being trained, still hasn’t yielded the desired results in the fight against corruption and organized crime at the highest levels. Because of Markovic the Commission also ailed to discuss the links between his recent colleagues in the ANB (Agency for National Security) and organized crime structure, especially what they were doing at the wedding of Rozaje-based criminal Safet Kalic (who the judiciary is now charging for money laundering).
Markovic also, abusing the function of the President of the National Commission, prevented discussion about the responsibility of the Supreme State Prosecutor who still hasn’t brought to light the case of the burning of the newspaper Vijesti’s news van nor those who ordered this crime. A similar fate greeted MANS’ initiative demanding that the judiciary uncover what exactly is Brano Micunovic’s business, and how exactly he managed to accumulate his wealth (given that he was the subject of investigations into organized crime initiated by Italian and Swiss prosecutors).
It is absolutely clear that the activities of Dusko Markovic in the National Commission, particularly in the last few months, were totally geared at preventing this body from discussing the responsibility of our state and judicial functionaries for the lack of results in the fight against corruption and organized crime at the highest levels.
Instead of preventing that the National Commission be used to sabotage investigations into criminal activities at the highest levels and to protect incapable functionaries, Markovic’s key argument for this behavior was that he had no time to get involved in the National Commission due to the numerous other obligations he had.
It’s a fact that Dusko Markovic is the absolute champion in the number of functions he holds, including the following functions: vice-president of the Government, Minister of Justice, Minister of Human Rights, member of the judicial council, President of the National Commission, the coordinator of the working group for the judicial sector and the fight against corruption and organized crime in the context of the Government’s coordinating team for implementing EC recommendations, he is also a member of the Council for Regulatory Reform and advancing the business environment, a member of the Coordinating Committee for Implementing the Strategy for the Long-Term Resolution of the Problems Confronting the Displaced and Refugees, with a particular focus on the situation in Konik and other refugee centers.
However, the number of functions that he performs shouldn’t be an obstacle to the National Commission’s effectiveness that should eventual ensure that we get some concrete results in the fight against corruption and organized crime. For this reason, MANS (for the first time) will not attend the session of the National Commission, since we do not wish to give any legitimacy to Mr. Markovic in his attempts to deny the problem of corruption and organized crime in this country.
Montenegro must continue with a serious struggle against these problems and it is unacceptable that we constantly receive obstruction from addresses that should be leading this process. Dusko Markovic needs to realize that our society needs concrete reforms and tangible results and that in this sense the interests of Montenegro’s citizens need to be placed before personal interests (including party political and other interests that he tirelessly agitates for).
