Montenegro Supreme Court President Resigns Over EU Criticism

President of Montenegrin Supreme Court Vesna Medenica at a press conference in Podgorica. Photo:PR Centar

"NGOs and some media have continuously created an environment for undermining the authority of judicial officials and negate all their results. In this context, they have provided a favourable basis for political pressure on the judiciary over the past two years," Medenica said in a press release.

"I hope that time will show that my Supreme Court presidential mandate was the only obstacle for achieving measurable progress in European Union integration," she added.

Medenica was first elected head of the Supreme Court in 2007 and was re-elected in 2014 and 2019. Before the first mandate, she was Supreme State Prosecutor. During past years, opposition and civic organisations have criticized her work, alleging poor results in judicial reforms and accusing her of political ties to President Milo Djukanovic and the previously governing Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS.

This year's progress report by the European Commission noted problems in the judiciary, including the President of the Supreme Court.

Her third mandate "raises serious concerns over the spirit of the constitutional and legal framework, which limits those appointments to a maximum two terms in order to prevent over-concentration of power within the judiciary", the report said.

In December 2019. media claimed Medenica was engaged in a property business with businessman Zoran Becirovic. According to the watchdog organisation MANS, in 2015 Medenica sold property in the town of Kolasin to Becirovic for 139,000 euros but did not report the sale to the Anti-Corruption Agency. By law, state officials must declare all changes in assets greater than 5,000 euros.