Human Rights Action is deeply disappointed by the irresponsible behavior of certain judges of the Supreme Court of Montenegro, who blocked the seventh attempt to elect the president of that court.

Filling that position is an urgent need for the judiciary, after three years of acting situation, and a very important step for the progress of the entire country towards membership in the European Union. It is a key priority in Chapter 23, necessary to meet the interim benchmarks and obtain the IBAR report.

Of the 17 judges of the Supreme Court, 12 did vote for one of the two judges who submitted candidacies and met the conditions for election, while the remaining five irresponsibly boycotted the election by submitting invalid ballots. Unfortunately, they refused to vote for colleagues who were ready to take responsibility, until they themselves had the courage to run for office.

The question is whether those responsible for yesterday’s failure have the goal of preventing the reforms that could have been initiated by that election?

There is no point in repeating the election procedure, which lasts at least a month, and which now needs to be organized for the eighth time, before the law is amended and allows a simple majority of the judges of the Supreme Court, instead of a two-thirds majority, to propose to the Judicial Council a candidate for the presidential office. Such a decision was contained in the working version of the Law on Amendments to the Law on the Judicial Council and Judges, whose amendments have been worked on for almost 4 years.

Judge Ana Vuković received 10 votes at yesterday’s session and was one vote short of being nominated for election to the Judicial Council. Two judges voted for judge Vukić.

If the Law on the Judicial Council and Judges had been amended by today, Judge Vuković would have been nominated for election with the majority of votes.

The session was held without the public, our representative was not allowed to attend, and we were informed that the minutes of the session will be available only upon request in accordance with the Law on Free Access to Information.

Of the 17 current judges of the Supreme Court, four were part of that court in 2019, when all judges voted for the third unconstitutional mandate of Vesna Medenica. Thirteen judges have been changed since then.