The new attempt by the Prime Minister Dritan Abazović and Minister of Justice Marko Kovač to push through the back door the so-called “anti-mafia law” is a continuation of their personal campaigns, and campaigns of political parties fighting for the census. Today, MANS called on the members of Montenegrin Parliament not to participate in another trampling on the public interest and the indisputable need of citizens to get a law that will not work in favour of criminals and corrupt state officials after 30 years of injustice.
The public learned from the media that the Government of Montenegro is proposing amendments to the laws related to confiscation of assets acquired through criminal activity, the Judicial Council and judges, as well as the Law on Civil Procedure. Not one of those laws was publicly discussed, while the amendments to the Law on Civil Procedure were adopted at a telephone session of the Government.
We remind you that the Parliament has already refused to consider proposed amendments to the law on confiscation of assets, following criticism from European Commission experts and civil society due to selectivity and non-compliance with standards, as well as lack of public discussion. The text of this proposal was published only after it was sent to the Parliament for consideration.
A few weeks later, again without any participation of the public, the Government proposed these laws during the election campaign.
Judging by the previous text of the law and the previous practice of this Government, we are very concerned that the quality of this law will also be questionable. The loopholes that existed in the previous draft of the Law were such that they would allow criminals to keep their assets and collect compensation from the state, just as was done in the cases of Šarić and Kalić.
Thanks to the Committee for Political System, Judiciary and Administration, some type of public discussion was organized, during which such big loopholes in the law were discovered that the working group of that Committee could not fix them with amendments.
Now, the Government is again hiding the amendments and proposing them to the Parliament by urgent procedure, without any consultation.
Insisting on this practice, despite the warnings of the domestic and international public, opens up a lot of room for the conclusion that some people from the Government consciously and deliberately propose amendments to the law that favour criminals because they have some personal interest in it.
We remind the MPs that citizens have been waiting for justice for decades and that by adopting selective laws, they would show that it is not attainable, but is the subject of rotten political compromises.
The adoption of such important legal framework requires political stability and a broad consensus of all interested parties, devoid of political calculations and with the investment of additional efforts to make the entire process as transparent as possible.
MANS
