The Constitutional Court of Montenegro announced today that it had resolved all constitutional appeals submitted to it more than a year and a half ago.

This is an exceptional result, considering that, at the end of 2024, the Court had 1,981 constitutional appeals pending and was failing to comply with the reasonable-time requirement established in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. The Constitutional Court now regularly publishes a list of unresolved cases concerning constitutional review and has also published a list of appeals decided by the end of June.

We recall that the Parliament of Montenegro, chaired by Andrija Mandić, has still not placed the election of the two missing Constitutional Court judges on its agenda. One judicial position is entirely vacant, while the other is being unconstitutionally occupied by Judge Desanka Lopičić, whose term of office should have ended two years ago, when she became eligible for retirement.

We also recall that the same Parliament, under the same Speaker, dismissed Constitutional Court Judge Dragana Đuranović in December 2024 because she had met the same retirement requirements. This, however, did not prevent Parliament from unfairly and selectively retaining Judge Lopičić in an identical situation and even extending her term of office, contrary to the fundamental rule-of-law principle that everyone is equal before the law.

The EU Ambassador to Montenegro, Johann Sattler, has meanwhile appealed on at least four occasions for the missing Constitutional Court judges to be elected without delay.

This raises the most important question of all: if the highest representatives of the government behave so irresponsibly while their democratic capacity is being tested before the 27 EU Member States, can it realistically be expected that they will become more responsible once that testing ends and Montenegro joins the EU?

It is high time for Parliament to act responsibly and, as early as tomorrow, place on the agenda and elect the uncontroversial candidates for the Constitutional Court: Predrag Krstonijević, a judge of the High Court in Podgorica, who was nominated in December 2025, and Jelena Ružičić, a judge of the Supreme Court of Montenegro, who was nominated in March of this year.