We welcome the decisions of the Parliament of Montenegro to elect Predrag Krstonijević and Jelena Ružičić as judges of the Constitutional Court today. The Court has thus finally obtained all seven judges required by the Constitution. We recall that the Constitutional Court had been in crisis over its incomplete composition since mid-2022.

The election of the new judges also marks the end of two years of unconstitutional service by Judge Desanka Lopičić, who met the conditions for an old-age pension back in June 2024 yet remained in office until today — unlike Judge Dragana Đuranović, whom Parliament removed in December 2024 for meeting those same pension conditions.

A full bench removes the risk that important decisions will be blocked, such as the review of the constitutionality of Montenegro’s agreement with the United Arab Emirates.

It is good that appeals from international partners (the EU) produced results, but it leaves a bitter taste that political parties fulfill their constitutional obligations only under outside pressure. Upholding the rule of law should be a matter of responsibility to one’s own citizens, not a forced reaction to warnings from Brussels.