As of May 31, the Constitutional Court of Montenegro will be left with only four judges out of the seven prescribed by law, further undermining the efficiency of this institution. Of those four judges, only three will hold a legitimate mandate.

Currently, five judges are serving on the Court; however, two of them are doing so unlawfully. Budimir Šćepanović and Desanka Lopičić should have ceased performing their judicial duties in May and June of last year, respectively, based on the mandatory provisions of the Constitution and the Law on Pension and Disability Insurance, as they have met the legal requirements for retirement—turning 65 and/or completing 40 years of service.

Despite this, they continue to hear cases because most judges of the Constitutional Court refer to the Labor Law regarding the termination of office. This law mandates retirement at the age of 66, which contradicts the opinion of legal experts who maintain that judges do not have a standard employment relationship with the state. Furthermore, judges in all other courts in the country end their service as soon as they meet the retirement criteria under the Law on Pension and Disability Insurance (LPDI).

Should the Constitutional Court decide to apply the Labor Law, Judge Šćepanović’s mandate would end on May 31, when he turns 66. Judge Lopičić’s twelve-year term is set to expire at the end of this year unless the Venice Commission intervenes to support the application of the existing pension law, which Parliament previously applied in the case of Judge Dragana Đuranović.

Additionally, the appointment of new Constitutional Court judges is delayed. The fact that no new judges have been appointed yet is severely undermining the Court’s efficiency, which currently takes about two years to render decisions.

We remind that the candidates for new judges are to replace Milorad Gogić, whose mandate ended on August 30, 2024; Dragana Đuranović, whose retirement was confirmed on December 17 of the same year—a matter still pending the Venice Commission’s opinion; and Budimir Šćepanović, who has remained in office until now but is expected to leave after May 31 this year.

The process of appointing a successor to Dragana Đuranović has been stalled at the Constitutional Committee, awaiting the Venice Commission’s opinion, expected on June 13 and 14. It remains unclear why there is hesitation regarding the appointment of a candidate to replace Milorad Gogić. All candidate interviews have been completed, and President Jakov Milatović has nominated Mirjana Vučinić as the successor to Budimir Šćepanović on the bench.

In light of the ongoing legal uncertainty surrounding the length of judicial mandates, we believe the Constitution should explicitly stipulate that a judge’s term in the Constitutional Court must end upon reaching the legally established retirement age, as seen in the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which allows judges to serve until the age of 70.