Montenegro

First of its kind Report on Assessment of Integrity and Capacities of Judiciary in Montenegro

Fight against corruption, as well as support to further institutional reform and reform of judiciary have been jointly defined as programme priorities in the Country Programme Action Plan 2007-2001signed recently by the representatives of the Government of Montenegro and the UNDP. Also, Montenegro signed the international UN Convention against Corruption and Organized Crime (UNCAC) and, therefore, it is committed to its implementation. Accordingly, the UNDP provides active support to development of public sector capacities, aligning of the anti corruption legislation with the UNCAC, various anti-corruption initiatives, and also to conducting of in depth researches on roots and manifestation of corruption.

The Report “Assessment of Integrity and Capacity of Judiciary System in Montenegro” is the latest result of partnering and cooperation in this field.

According to Ms. Dragana Radević, Executive Director of CEED, the research results show that court sentences were made with respect for independency and impartiality principles, and in a small number of cases some decisions were made under certain pressure by family and social connections, politics and corruption. „This research also showed that clients believe that the legal system protects only the powerful and the rich ones, and one third of interviewed clients and companies think that judiciary system is often corrupted. Quite a large percentage of judges, prosecutors and inspectors emphasized that there was no such case, or at least they were not aware of any case of client offering bribe to some of the observed categories. However, 4.9% clients reported requests for bribes to judges as well as 3.9% companies and 1.8% of lawyers, whilst 2.9% companies, 2.2% clients, 0.9% lawyers and 0.6% court experts reported requests for bribes to a prosecutor,“ said Ms. Radević.

„Surveyed judges and prosecutors believe that they are independent and that the biggest pressure comes from the media, whereas, according to their statements, there is no pressure from political or executive authorities. Also, judges and prosecutors claim that they are prompt in resolving proceedings, and as for them corruption never existed. The research showed that, according to clients’ and companies’ experience the courts were available in the past 12 months and their availability is at the same level as two years ago. Almost one third of the interviewees would not ask the court for protection, and the reasons they mentioned are slowliness of the courts, corruption and that they are not just and independent. According to clients, companies and lawyers the courts were prompt sometimes, and the level of their promptness remained the same as in the past two years. During the research judges stressed that the proceedings last shorter, whereas lawyers and experts think that proceedings last twice longer than the judges claim,“ said Ms. Radević. She also said that the level of satisfaction with working conditions was expressed by prosecutors and the police, whilst the largest number of judges are discontented but they would not change their job.

„The main results of the research fully comply with the priorities defined by the Strategy for the reform of judiciary and Action plan. Now it can be said that the policy directions for  judiciary reform are in this way checked and confirmed,“ said Ms. Vesna Ratković, Director of the Directorate for Anti-Corruption Initiative. „Every year, the international community sets new corpus of even more complex and higher standards when it comes to corruption, and the latest international standard is zero tolerance of corruption. The majority of standards are stated in the UN Convention against Corruption and Organized Crime and also in the Criminal Law and Civil Law Conventions on Corruption of the Council of Europe,“ Ms. Ratković stressed and she said that Montenegro adopted all those conventions. „They represent a large number of obligations and international standards, of which a vast majority has already been included in the Montenegrin Legislation,“ said Ms. Ratković and added that since 2003 up untill now a whole set of new criminal acts, which had not existed before, was included in criminal and legal codes. „Those are criminal acts of money laundering, various types of terrorism, criminal and special criminal acts which refer to corruption, and a large number of persons which can be included when it comes to processing criminal acts in domain of fight against corruption. This does not refer to state officials only, but also to representatives of international organisations, judges, prosecutors and other categories. A whole set of UN obligations predicts that the countries should establish various specialized agencies for fight against corruption, either preventively or repressively,“ Ms. Ratković explained.

According to Ms. Ratković, quite a number of newly founded state organs is followed by a set of new laws, and a special department was founded within the Higher Court and the Prosecution Office. That department will deal just with the cases of corruption and organised crime. Ms. Ratković also reminded of the Third Report of the National Commission for Fighting Corruption which shows that 52% of measures set within the period given for reporting have been accomplished. „A strong contribution to revealing and proving of corruption will be the possibility of using secret surveillance measures stipulated by changes in the Criminal Proceedings Code,“ Ms. Ratković concluded.

Mr. Miodrag Dragišić, UNDP Social Inclusion Cluster Team Leader said: “It is well known that the judiciary is one of key national system safeguards for efficient fight against corruption and organized crime. Henceforth, and as a result of an agreement between the governmental partners, the Directorate for Anti-Corruption Initiative (DACI) first of all, theUNODC and the UNDP, the Judiciary has been selected for the first its kind research in Montenegro. Given sensitivity of the theme, and a need for concrete data and analysis on related problems, it was extremely important to do a research based on a successful and proved methodology. In this sense, the DACI and the UNDP used the experience and expertise of the UNODC which is a UN body responsible for implementation of UN Convention against Corruption and Organized Crime. Their prior experience served as a point of reference for the research methodology and ways of doing it.”

“Alhtough the results of the research are important from quite a number of aspects,” said also Mr. Dragišić, “I would like to emphasize at least two important reasons for doing it: 1) Offer responsible state institutions a tool for follow up and measuring of progress in implementation of the strategies and action programmes adopted for the purpose of fight against corruption; 2) Establish and analyze real problems and give recommendations and enable better targeting and streamlining of measures with regard to the causes of problems. A value added to the research is the already mentioned fact that this is the first of its kind research; thus as such, it will serve as a starting basis – reference point for further analyses and follow-up on corruption trends. By supporting production of this Report the UNDP wishes to extend its commitment to continue to assist the partnering organizations in this domain, especially the Directorate for Anti-Corruption Initiative,” Mr. Dragišić concluded.