The High court in Podgorica confirmed the verdict of the Basic Court in Podgorica, which established that the police unlawfully arrested six employees of MANS, and that they right to personal liberty was violated. As a reminder, the activists of MANS were arrested in June 2013 in front of the Parliament of Montenegro during the conduct of the public action due to the VAT increase that covers the costs of corrupted business of the executive branch. On that occasion, were arrested Vanja Calovic, Vuk Maras, Jelena Mandic Radonjic, Baja Danilovic, Mitar Batrović and Ivan Bakic.
The High Court in its judgment emphasized that the police officers during the arrest and detention of activists of MANS violated the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the Constitution of Montenegro and the laws of Montenegro, because they did not informed them of the reasons for the deprivation of liberty and those rights were violated during the entire detained, that the police did not take actions which would have indicated that they committed misdemeanors, nor the actions to prevent them from doing so and that they were denied contact with a lawyer as soon as possible.
So it is finally confirmed that the state to employees of MANS violated the entire corpus of fundamental human rights stipulated in the Constitution and the European Convention; the right to liberty, the right to notice of charges and other rights they have, the right to counsel, the right to freedom of assembly, and the right to freedom of expression. The High Court has committed the state that to employees of MANS who were arrested on that occasion pay 300 euros to each employee on the basis of damages for unlawful detention.
Previously the Court for misdemeanors legally free staff of MANS for an offense according to the police in an attempt to justify the illegal arrest and detention for several hours.
The encouraging fact is that the judiciary in this case applied the European Convention and the standards set in the European Court of Human Rights that we have pointed on during the procedure, but still is concerning to learn that institutions responsible for detecting and combating crime repressive apparatus illegally channel towards those who point and discover corruption and crime.
The arrest captured by nearly all media in Montenegro and later detention of arrested persons, could not be done without an order from the very top in the police hierarchy. However, for such a public violation of basic human rights and freedoms, none of the senior leaders in the police has not be held responsible.
This is just one of a series of cases in which MANS by final court decisions proved that the police repressive apparatus illegally channeled towards citizens who discover corruption, instead to do that toward actors of corruption and organized crime. So once again we invite relevant institutions to finally hold accountable the heads of the police, particularly its director, who even publicly announced that the police would again act in the same manner toward the employees of MANS. Meanwhile, while the director of police repression directed towards MANS and unsuccessfully tried to intimidate us and to divert us from pointing to the corruption of the executive branch, the security situation in the country came to the lowest possible level.
If the police under his leadership repression directed against criminals and if the massage was sent to criminals that they will be arrested, instead of doing that toward MANS who does its job, we are confident that today Montenegro would have visible results in the fight against organized crime and corruption and that the security situation would be at a much higher level than it is now.
Instead, today we have an unfavorable security situation in the country, organized crime and high-level corruption that threaten the basic functioning of the state and violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms for which the compensation for damages is paid from the state budget.
MANS
