ONE HUNDRED-YEARS OF PRISON

Political trials in Montenegro

Summary:

Recently in Cetinje, the Montenegrin capital, drastic prison sentences were passed on a group of young men who had, a year and a half earlier "insulted the President of the Republic", by scanting "traitor", "thief" and similar names at Bulatovic. That was the last in a series of political proceedings which were in the previous month instituted and completed in Montenegro, at which the accused were sentenced to a total of 104 and a half years of imprisonment! The convicted included the SDA (Party of Democratic Action) leaders, Acim Visnjic, a deputy and the leader of the Montenegrin radicals for insulting Prime Minister Djukanovic in the Republican Assembly, and finally the mentioned Cetinje denizens for "injuring the reputation" of President Bulatovic.

Despite its political differences, the opposition was unanimous in condemning these processes, accusing the authorities of creating a party and not a civil state of Montenegro. The ruling party responded rather reservedly to all this, threatening with the absolute power it had won at the last elections which, according to it, makes it possible to implement that power to its liking, until the next electoral test. The problem with all these trials and sentences is not in the duration of the sentences imposed, but rather the fact that they point to the principle of selectivity which the courts apply in their work and thus treat the accused not according to the offence they have committed but rather depending on their party or some other affiliation.

Text:

The Primary Court in Cetinje passed, a few days ago, a verdict on sixteen boys from Cetinje charged with the criminal offence of slandering the Republic of Montenegro and disturbing a public gathering dedicated to the 180th - anniversary of the death of Petar II Petrovic Njegos, sentencing three of them to two years of prison, eight to one year, five boys to six months and one got away with a one-year suspended sentence.

"All of them are guilty because they... exposed to ridicule the President of the Republic of Montenegro, Momir Bulatovic, by gross insults and insolent and rude behaviour; when he came out of the Biljarda building and was heading towards the official car, they showered him with offensive names, such as: "traitor, murderer, thief, Slobodan Milosevic's bastard, you have betrayed Montenegro", and when the President entered the car, they spit on and kicked the vehicle with their hands and feet shouting these same insults, thereby disturbing the serenity of the citizens and public order", read part of the ruling.

President Bulatovic and the Metropolitan for Montenegro and the Coastal Area, Amfilohije, who was in the Government House when the scientific gathering was discontinued, did not appear in court as crown witnesses for the defence. The court also disregarded the testimony according to which President Bulatovic irritated the participants in the protest gathering by a rude gesture of the fingers, and the fact that the President's security was inadequate.

These rulings of the Primary Court of Cetinje were the last in a series made in the past month in Montenegro. All cases concerned people belonging to the political opposition. Court chroniclers have calculated that all the sentences total nearly 104 years, and one year of suspended prison sentence.

A week earlier SDA leaders and activists for Montenegro, 21 of them, were sentenced to a total of 87 years of prison "for the criminal act of endangering the territorial integrity of FRY and the illegal possession of weapons and explosives". In the meantime, the Court of higher instance in Podgorica confirmed the five month prison sentence of one of the leaders of the Serbian Radical Party in Montenegro and its deputy to the Assembly, Acim Visnjic, because of having publicly ridiculed the government and its Prime Minister and slandering courts and judges in Montenegro. Of all the rulings pronounced in the course of one month, only the one concerning Mr.Visnjic is enforceable at present.

One of the defence counsels for the accused leaders and activists of the SDA, lawyer Vladan Djuranovic from Podgorica, qualified the process before the Criminal Panel of the Court of higher instance in Bijelo Polje as a "typical example of a political process". He explains that the "process began with unprecedented pressure on the public through all the media", that the public was "simply bombarded by materials and data collected by the Ministry of the Interior, although these were data which had yet to be verified in the criminal proceedings. In this way, the defendants were accused even before the trial began and the Court put in a position to carry out its function under the formidable burden of the already created awareness that the accused were guilty and that only the sentences had to be meted out", says Djuranovic.

He also mentions that at the beginning of the investigation the defence counsels were denied the right to be present at investigative procedures. Later, this decision was abolished, but the investigative procedures were not repeated in the presence of the counsels of the defendants nor was a report on these procedures extracted from court acts as requested by the defence. Lawyer Djuranovic adduces many other facts which indicate that "the accused did not have a legal trial, that their rights were drastically violated, and that the ruling is not a result of the overall facts established during the proceedings".

The counsel for the accused from Cetinje also has no doubts about the nature of the criminal proceedings against his clients. That is absolutely a political process says lawyer Miodrag Zivkovic, accusing the Democratic Party of Socialists of having staged it, a party, as he says which has "regrettably, the police and the judiciary as its extended arm". In order to explain his conviction, lawyer Zivkovic says: "If the "Cetinje case" were not a political trial, would not the same have been instituted by the prosecutor from Cetinje, rather than the higher prosecutor from Podgorica; would the investigation be conducted by the President of the Cetinje Court Lalisic, despite the fact that there is an investigating judge - Vujovic; would all the accused be held in detention; would every accused be specifically questioned about his political party affiliation, i.e. about his party membership; would all the witnesses for the prosecution be only members of the Ministry of the Interior and not a single citizen; would all Minisitry of the Interior members, as witnesses, be interrogated during the investigation in secret from the defence counsels; would the defence counsels be prevented from inspecting the documents of the case during the investigation..."

One of the lawyers of the accused Acim Visnjic, his party comrade, Ilija Darmanovic, also claims that this is a political process to be used as an example of what will happen to everyone who, in the estimate of the ruling party, "behaves in a manner which does not suit it, and who seriously and constructively criticizes the work of the government and the ruling party, or their leaders".

Although there were reactions in connection with the sentences passed on Montengrin SDA leaders and the process against SRS deputy Acim Visnjic, they were far from those which arose in connection with the sentences pronounced on the Cetinje group. Prison sentences from two years to six months genuinely shocked the political parties advocating a sovereign Montenegro, the Liberal Association of Montenegro and the Social Democratic Party of Montenegro, as well as the Popular Party of Montenegro, held to be the Serbian national party in Montenegro. In their press releases on this occasion, despite nuances in approach and different political intonations, all three opposition parties assessed that draconic sentences and politicization of the Montenegrin judiciary were in question.

"The gravity of the pronounced sentences shows in particular that the authorities have opted for draconic measures, so as to try by fear to prevent criticism and the legal expression of protest against the disastrous consequences of the six-year DPS rule. The trial at Cetinje shows that DPS will not stop at the introduction of overt dictatorship so as to prevent democratic progress in Montenegro", reads the message of the Montenegrin liberals to the public. The Social Democrats particularly pointed to the fact that "the judiciary is politicized by yet another case", while the Popular Party underlined the irregularity of the trial and sentences on account of verbal commission. "That in Montenegro the legal state is subjugated to the party and police state is best attested to by the sentences pronounced on the group of young men from Cetinje", says the Popular Party. The public was also informed that the "party state demonstrates all its cruelty when there is least reason to do so, and behaves indolently when the lives of citizens are endangered, when criminals become renowned businessmen, when self-styled bishops work against the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro, or when hooligans batter a policeman to death".

This opposition reaction was immediately followed by the answer of the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists. "The DPS is the ruling party in Montenegro thanks to the decision of the citizens of Montenegro, and it will check the correctness of its politics and manner of conducting state affairs at the next regular elections. Until then, the DPS of Montenegro shall remain concerned over the fact that the two strongest opposition parties (The Popular Party of Montenegro and the Liberal Alliance of Montenegro) term the administration of justice tyranny and see its gross violation as the achievements of democracy and justice", says, inter alia, the DPS press release.

Confirming, albeit unconsciously, the claims of the opposition that the Montenegrin judiciary is under the total control of the ruling party, the Executive Council of the Association of Judges of Montenegro made a statement on the same day and in the same tone as the DPS, requesting that political parties leave it to courts to "under grave and complex social conditions, apply the Constitution and law in the interest of the state and protect citizens in the exercise of their rights and obligations before courts".

In its repeated reaction the Popular Party of Montenegro underlined that the judiciary, yielding to the will of the DPS "punishes citizens only when they express their dissatisfaction with state officials instead of punishing every offence and thus enhancing general legal security". At the same time, the Popular Party accused the ruling party of deliberately heightening tensions between the authorities and the opposition, assessing that to be "a far greater danger for Montenegro than the alleged coalition, i.e. the principled stance demonstrated by the opposition in protecting endangered democratic processes".

If judged on the basis of the principle of the division of power, courts in Montenegro are independent and neither the two other branches - the executive and the judiciary - nor the Democratic Party of Socialist should be blamed for their work. But, as this party has an overwhelming majority in the Assembly, an almost absolute majority in the government (only a few Ministers are not its members) and a dominant majority in the judiciary, it is hard to escape the impression that everything is not functioning according to the letter of the Constitution.

The Democratic Party of Socialists demonstrated, on a number of occasions, its willingness to subjugate both the legislative and the executive and the judicial power to its party interests, justifying that by the will of the citizens and the results of the latest elections. Moreover, to subjugate them to the interests of individuals or groups in top party and state echelons. Therefore, the main problem is not that courts pass drastic sentences, but that they punish selectively, overlooking the illegal acts committed under the direct or tacit protection of the authorities. It is therefore more correct to call Montenegro a party than a legal state. The Democratic Party of Socialists does not wish to be aware of the ultimate political consequences of such acts for fear that with the loss of absolute influence in all spheres of society the carpet will be pulled from under its feet.

Dusko Vukovic AIM Podgorica