The Women’s Rights Center (WRC) and the Human Rights Action (HRA) protest against the drastic and unjustified reduction of the sentence for the perpetrator of multiple child rape acts.

We maintain that the Appeals Court panel failed to provide adequate rationale nor did it demonstrate due consideration for the interests of the victimized young girl when deciding to nearly halve the originally imposed maximum sentence of 15 years for the prolonged criminal offense of rape.

We argue that the actions of the Appeals Court panel contravene the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, as evidenced in the case of Vučković v. Croatia, which explicitly criticized the absence of cogent justifications and sensitivity to the interests of victims of sexual violence in the mitigation of initially prescribed sanctions.

Furthermore, we contend that this case underscores the long-overdue necessity of heeding expert recommendations and instituting sentencing guidelines to ensure uniformity in legal practice and safeguard legal certainty.

The rationale behind the Appeals Court panel’s assertion that the Higher Court in Podgorica, which presided over the trial and was directly acquainted with the evidence, “overemphasized” the identified aggravating circumstances (including multiple offenses and prior convictions) remains entirely opaque. Moreover, it is unclear on what basis the panel concluded that the sentence should be reduced from 15 to 8 years, rather than to 9, 10, or 12 years.

While acknowledging the judiciary’s prerogative of independent judicial conviction, our organizations emphasize that, in the interest of legal certainty and respect for human rights, judicial decisions must be adequately substantiated.

We remind that neither the court of first instance nor the appellate court identified any mitigating circumstances in favor of the perpetrator, who subjected a fifteen-year-old girl to multiple rapes and prolonged psychological abuse, keeping her in a state of constant fear that he would kill her father and leave her mother unemployed.

Regrettably, the judgment rendered by the Appeals Court panel fails to address the profound and enduring consequences of such physical and psychological torment inflicted upon a child.

The judgment of the Appeals Court panel is accessible here.