At the session held mid-last month, the Commission for the Code of Ethics for Judges of the Judicial Council of Montenegro discussed the initiatives of MANS related to the judges of the High Court in Podgorica – Vesna Kovačević, Sanja Čakanović and Zoran Radović, and made decisions to submit proposals to the Disciplinary Prosecutor for determining the disciplinary liability of the said judges.
Namely, at the beginning of June 2024, MANS submitted documentation to the Judicial Council that raises suspicions that Kovačević, Čakanović and Radović failed to report the change in their assets in a legally valid manner or did not report it at all to the Agency for Prevention of Corruption (APC), which is clearly prescribed obligation under the Law on Prevention of Corruption.
Specifically, using the Law on Free Access to Information, MANS obtained documents that show that the judge of the High Court in Podgorica, Vesna Kovačević, did not report within the legal deadline that her son had bought an apartment worth 116,000 euros while he was still a member of the household, while Sanja Čanović missed to report to APC the sale of a studio apartment in co-ownership as well as the income of 35,000 euros that she earned on that occasion. Their colleague, who is also the president of that court, Zoran Radović, did not submit his income and assets declaration for 2022 at all.
The Law on Judicial Council and Judges defines as a serious disciplinary offense if a judge, among other things, “accepts gifts or does not submit data on assets and income in accordance with the regulations governing the prevention of conflicts of interest.” Now, on the other hand, the disciplinary prosecutor has a deadline of 45 days to conduct and complete the investigation and make decisions whether to dismiss or reject the proposals for determining disciplinary liability, or to submit indictment proposals for determining the disciplinary liability of the judge – to the Disciplinary panel of the Judicial Council. The Disciplinary panel consists of three members of the Judicial Council, two members from among the judges and one member from among the eminent lawyers, who shall be the chairperson of the disciplinary panel.
For a severe disciplinary offense, which not reporting and/or concealing changes in assets is, a fine in the amount of 20% to 40% of the salary of the judge, lasting for a period of three to six months and a ban on promotion shall be imposed.
As a reminder, MANS submitted the documentation for the mentioned judges way earlier to the APC, which unfortunately did not make a decision upon the submitted initiatives of MANS within the legal deadline. This is a continuation of the practice of this institution, because not a single initiative submitted by MANS referring to the suspicion that judges and prosecutors hid changes in their assets has yet been resolved before this institution.
MANS is still waiting for a response from the Prosecutorial Council, to which the initiative was previously submitted to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Andrijana Nastić, state prosecutor at the High State Prosecutor’s Office in Podgorica, also for not reporting changes in assets.
We expect all the listed authorities to take a proper and legal position, and show a greater dose of integrity and credibility when it comes to the treatment of judges and prosecutors in relation to the APC, which creatively interprets the law and does not contribute to increasing the trust in the judiciary.
In the coming period, MANS will continue to collect and process data on the assets and income of high-ranking public officials, especially judges and prosecutors and their family members, and will report to the competent authorities any deviation from publicly available registers, because it cannot be expected from people who hide the assets and changes in it from the public to be able to conduct the necessary transitional reforms in the area of high corruption and organized crime. This activity is carried out by MANS as part of the project “Responsible judiciary and State Prosecutor’s Office for strengthened rule of law in Montenegro”, supported by the European Union.
MANS
