After current and former judges were heard before the High Court in Podgorica in April, in the case against the former President of the Supreme Court Vesna Medenica, the public learned that the former first woman of the Montenegrin judiciary allegedly did not influence the judges while they were passing judgments. At that time, those who testified denied that Medenica influenced them in the court cases that were mentioned in the indictment that was brought against her and others who were suspected of being part of a criminal group organised by Medenica’s son Miloš.
Still, there is the question of whether, and to what extent, the holders of judicial offices were independent in making decisions, and what the situation in practice is.
The case “Tripcovici v. Montenegro”, in which the European Court of Human Rights has ruled, is quite indicative in this sense. It was a civil proceeding involving trespassing – the neighbour had erected a fence that had physically separated two neighbouring plots owned by the applicants, thus preventing them from accessing one of them.
They noticed the disturbance on 13 June 2009 and filed a lawsuit on 15 July of the same year. According to the law, specifically according to Article 77 of the Law on Property and Legal Relations that was in force at the time, a claim involving trespassing must be filed within 30 days from the date of learning of said trespassing and the perpetrator.
In this case, the thirtieth day from 13 June was 13 July, but 13 and 14 July were public holidays, and the courts were closed. According to Article 108 of the Law on Civil Procedure, if the deadline expires on a holiday, it is deemed to in fact expire on the first following working day – that is, 15 July, when the lawsuit was actually filed.
The Basic Court in Kotor accepted the lawsuit as submitted in a timely fashion, correctly applying the aforementioned legal provisions. However, the High Court in Podgorica reversed the verdict and rejected the lawsuit as untimely. It did so without referring to the relevant laws and without explaining why the rule on extending the deadline to include the first working day did not apply in this case.
As a result, the applicants initiated proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled in 2017 that there had been a violation of the right to a fair trial. The Court in Strasbourg pointed out that the High Court decided arbitrarily, without a legal basis and contrary to the clearly defined rules on the calculation of deadlines.
The decision of the High Court, made contrary to the clearly prescribed rules on the calculation of deadlines, issued without an explanation and without referring to the relevant legal norms, opened up space for serious doubts regarding the motives of such action. A justified dilemma arises When one deviates from the elementary legal rules, which are studied in the first years of law school: is it mere incompetence or corrupt activity?
In any case, this kind of judicial practice, revealed after several years, undermines the basic principles of legal security and further erodes citizens’ confidence in the independence and professionalism of the judiciary.
Additionally, in 2024 and 2025 the Supreme Court found a violation of the law in favour of the defendants in 23 cases, adopting requests for the protection of legality. This practice can also indicate the same phenomena – incompetence or corruption.
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