MANS invites the Council of the High Court in Podgorica to reject the agreement as a special prosecutor’s office made with Milos Marovic, because it violates the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) and actually represents Marovic’s amnesty for involvement in multi-million corruption, but also represents and the incentive to him and other persons in the future to continue with the same crimes.
According to the provisions of the CPC, the court must reject the plea agreement if it is not in accordance with the interests of justice or if sanction does not coordinate with the purpose of imposition of criminal sanctions, and what the prosecution made with Marovic does not meet either of these conditions.
When it comes to the first condition, from the beginning of negotiations the prosecution is unable to explain how it is in the interest of fairness to make a deal with Milos Marovic, who is charged with participation in an organized criminal group that has earned millions of euros, which intends to buy his freedom with money of dubious origin and for much lower amount than the damage is inflicted as the Prosecution assessed. Prosecutors Katnic and Stankovic still did not release to the public information about what the Prosecution got from the Marovic so the decision is made that is more than favorable for him.
On the other hand under the Criminal Code, the purpose of sentencing is to prevent the offender from committing criminal acts and to influence him not to commit criminal acts in the future, influencing others not to commit crimes, expressing social condemnation for a criminal offense, and the obligation to respect the laws and moral strengthening and influence on the development of social responsibility.
With a minimum sentence that the prosecution agreed with Markovic is not achieved even one of the purposes of punishment which the law prescribes. On the contrary, such a settlement with prosecution, encouraged Marovic and others to commit crimes, agreed penalty is not an essential social condemnation, and does not suggest the obligation to respect the law, lowers morale and does not develop social responsibility. On the contrary, processing of group from Budva has significantly raised public expectations that the law will be applied equally to all, while this kind of settlement contribute significantly to the decline in public confidence in the work of the prosecution and create an image that in this country money can buy everything, even freedom.
Also, it is obvious that the settlement with Marovic can not affect him nor the other person to stop committing criminal acts. On the contrary, this settlement sends the message that corruption is very lucrative business and that in case of detection is possible to make an agreement with prosecutors that will allow freedom to be bought with suspicious money.
Furthermore, such a settlement with Marovic allows him to keep all assets whose origin is more than doubtful, and also shows that the prosecution has no sincere intention to seriously address the fight against corruption and to seize all the property that was illegally acquired. However, even though proceedings against Marovic undergo for months, the prosecution has not yet filed a motion for temporary seizure of assets of Milos Marovic suspected that is acquired illegally. The absence of this proposal and the court’s decision on temporary seizure of assets indicates that the Prosecution Office against Marovic did not start nor financial investigation, because the provisions of the CPC stipulate that financial investigation is initiated against the accused that the court, on request of the plaintiff, temporarily seized assets.
Therefore, the High Court has to reject this dubious agreement with Marovic and the Prosecutor’s Office because its acceptance would be detrimental to the interests of the legality and fairness. We think that by confirming this settlement by the High Court it would be open the space that the guilt of other members of the group from Budva would be relativized and complete the process would be turned into a farce.
MANS
