Human Rights Action (HRA) submitted to the Ministry of Justice reasoned proposals for amendments to the Draft law on the Judicial Training Center.
Surprised at the fact that the draft law did not provide for compulsory training programs for judges and prosecutors, HRA had proposed:
1) That the Management Board of the Center determines which training programs should be compulsory for all judges and prosecutors, i.e. judges or prosecutors of certain profile;
2) Explicitly enabling judges and prosecutors to be trained at least four working days per year;
3) Providing accurate records of training attendance for each judge and prosecutor respectively, in order to know whether those having the obligation to participate in training have done so, i.e. to provide data for each judge and prosecutor training programs in which they participated.
Compulsory continuous training of judges and prosecutors exist not only in, for example, France, Italy, Belgium, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Spain, Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands – prosecutors only, Lithuania, but also in the countries of the region such as Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, so HRA believes there is no legitimate reason not to introduce such practice in Montenegro. It is likely that all judges will necessarily have to learn how to apply EU law during the EU membership preparatory phase. On the other hand, practice shows that judges and prosecutors should constantly be learning and exploring the European Court of Human Rights case law, international humanitarian law, modern methods of investigation of criminal offenses of Corruption, Organized crime, Internet crime, etc.
Keeping accurate records of training sessions attended by each judge or prosecutor individually, not just records “on the structure and number of participants”, as proposed, would allow collecting data necessary for career advancement or determining disciplinary liability.
HRA reminds that the state must ensure that all judges are properly trained for performing judicial functions, which implies continuous specialization.
In addition, HRA proposed:
• Enabling the Judicial Training Center to provide training to managers of clerk’s offices and other personnel employed by the courts and the state prosecution (Amendments 1 and 2);
• That the Judicial Council and Prosecutorial Council elect their own members as representatives to the Judicial Training Center Management Board rather than electing judges and prosecutors outside of their composition; otherwise, to enable the conferences of judges and prosecutors to elect their representatives to the Center’s Management Board, a judge i.e. a prosecutor (Amendments 2 and 3);
• That the Center’s Board prescribes criteria for determining the ability and willingness of candidates for becoming mentors for the initial training of judges and prosecutors (Amendments 5 and 6);
• Enabling members of the Management Board of the Centre to elect the President of the Management Board, instead of limiting the presidential post only to representatives of the Supreme Court;
• Enabling membership of attorneys and scholars in the Program Committees (Amendments 8 and 9);
• That the responsibilities of the Program Committee for Initial Training and the Program Committee for Continuous Training are more precisely prescribed (Amendment 10);
• That the condition for termination of office of the Program Council member – a conviction to an unconditional prison sentence – is replaced by (any) conviction for a criminal offense that would make a member unworthy of the membership, and thus enable assessment in each individual case (Amendment 11);
• That the condition for electing the Secretariat Director is active knowledge of English language instead of English or French (Amendment 12);
• Allowing that trainers to judges and prosecutors may be persons who are not engaged in science but have valuable practical knowledge and experience that can help them understand phenomena such as domestic violence, needs of persons with disabilities, work of the media, etc. (Amendment 14);
• That the content and purpose of initial training is specified in the spirit of the local language and with more accurate and more complete interpretation, and particularly to prescribe that the aim of carrying out their functions is in accordance with the requirements of democratic society (Amendment 15);
• Allowing the candidates to appeal before formation of marks are submitted for final decision (Amendment 16).
