HRA NEWSLETTER 15 – TOPIC 5

Decisions on judges’ disciplinary accountability and violations of the Code of Ethics have still not been published on the official website of the Judicial Council of Montenegro, although amendments to the Council’s Rules of Procedure explicitly requiring their publication were published in the Official Gazette of Montenegro in November.

The amendments provide that “decisions of the Judicial Council and the Disciplinary Panel adopted in disciplinary proceedings, as well as decisions of the Commission for Monitoring the Implementation of the Code of Ethics for Judges, shall be published on the website of the Judicial Council after becoming final and after anonymisation.”

It should be recalled that, in September, a request submitted by Human Rights Action (HRA) for access to decisions of the Judicial Council’s Disciplinary Panel was rejected. Following this, HRA twice addressed the members of the Judicial Council in writing, requesting that the decisions be made available and highlighting the importance of transparency in matters of judicial disciplinary accountability.

On 24 November 2025, the Judicial Council informed HRA that amendments to the Rules of Procedure had been adopted and that their publication in the Official Gazette of Montenegro was pending. On that occasion, the Council stated that, after publication and entry into force, anonymised decisions of the Judicial Council, the Disciplinary Panel, and the Commission for Monitoring the Implementation of the Code of Ethics for Judges would be published on its official website.

Although the amendments to the Rules of Procedure were published on 26 November 2025, the decisions have still not been made public.

Human Rights Action once again calls on the Judicial Council to publish, without delay, the decisions of the Disciplinary Panel and the Ethics Commission, as their availability is essential for monitoring compliance with professional standards in judicial practice. Strengthening judges’ ethical and disciplinary accountability is also one of the closing benchmarks under Chapter 23 and an important precondition for Montenegro’s continued progress towards membership in the European Union.

HRA NEWSLETTER 15

• N15.T1 – Mugoša is elected Judge of the Constitutional Court, Krstonijević fails to secure support in the first round
• N15.T2 – Vesna Medenica sentenced to one year and nine months in prison, Judge Vlahović-Milosavljević to six months
• N15.T3 – Prosecutors seek 20 years in prison for Vesna Medenica and her son Miloš, defence seeks acquittal
• N15.T4 – The path of a young lawyer to judicial office
• N15.T5 – Judicial Council still fails to publish decisions on judges’ disciplinary and ethical responsibility
• N15.T6 – More than two fifths of cases with unknown perpetrators became time-barred over ten years
• N15.T7 – Constitutional Court holds public hearing on agreement between Montenegro and the UAE
• N15.T8 – Venice Commission: automatic extension of Constitutional Court judges’ mandates needed, more precise rules required
• N15.T9 – New Code of Judicial Ethics: revised format, old dilemmas remain
• N15.BN – BRIEF NEWS