A local NGO has urged Montenegro's Constitutional Court to end the practice of the government appointing magistrates.
The Centre for Civic Education, CGO-CCE, has filed on Tuesday a proposal in front of the Constitutional Court for their review of the implementation of the Law on Misdemeanours to be treated as a priority.
Danilo Ajkovic, the CGO-CCE member, said that the procedures of the government-determined appointments and dismissals of 68 of Montenegro's magistrates are violating people's right for trial in front of the independent court.
He explained that the new law, adopted in 2011 was not problematic, but the fact that the provisions of the old law were still being implemented is.
Prior to the adoption of the new law, Montenegro did not have magistrate courts, but councils and regional authorities, whose members were appointed by the government to the five years term.
The old practice, however, has continued, after the new law was adopted in September 2011, breaching thus several provisions of the 2007 Constitution, the CGO-CCE argues.
The Constitution stipulates that judges and presiding judges should be elected by the Judicial Council and that the judicial tenure is permanent.
The NGO argues that the most harmful consequence of the current practice is that the government, through government appointed magistrates, could decide even about jail sentences.