Piperović: The term „off-record owner“ must be removed from Montenegrin judicial practice
The Supreme Court ruling rejecting the request of the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office to impose a ban on the use and disposal of property belonging to the company „Bemax“, Zoran Lazović and Milivoje Katnić has opened an additional question - whether Montenegrin courts will finally eliminate from use the term „off-record owner“, which has served as a tool for various prosecutorial abuses, as well as for actions aimed at confiscating property from its actual owner
The panel of the Supreme Court of Montenegro, composed of Valentina Pavličić as President, and judges Jelena Čabarkapa, Snežana Vukčević, Nevenka Popović and Jelena Ružičić, has, at its session on December 22, dismissed as unfounded the request of the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office for the protection of legality, which sought a measure banning the disposal and use of the property of Zoran Lazović and Milivoje Katnić.
By this ruling, the ban on the use of certain properties, imposed in September 2024 by the investigating judge of the High Court, was revoked. Previously, in June of last year, the Criminal Panel of the High Court in Podgorica partially upheld the appeals of the defense attorneys for Lazović and Katnić, lawyers Zoran Piperović and Marjan Marković, thereby revoking what is legally referred to as the „temporary measures prohibiting the use of real estate“.
REJECTION OF PREJUDGING GUILT
However, the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office considered that this decision violated the law in favor of Zoran Lazović and Milivoje Katnić and therefore filed a request for the protection of legality, which has now been permanently dismissed as unfounded by the Supreme Court panel.
- The Supreme Court takes the position that imposing a temporary measure banning the use of property, in the absence of a causal link between the property in question and the criminal offenses, would have the character of a preventive sanction rather than a procedural security measure. This would effectively prejudge a decision on permanent confiscation of property prior to the adoption of a final decision on guilt - the reasoning of the ruling states, among other things.
A GOOD DECISION, BUT…
In an interview with Television E, attorney Zoran Piperović partially refuted some media reports claiming that Lazović was allowed to use an apartment in the „Perla“ building in Budva, noting that the use of that apartment falls exclusively within the authority of the owner - the company Bemax.
Nevertheless, Piperović emphasizes that the Supreme Court’s decision is significant.
- The first important thing is that the Supreme Court has begun doing its job and strictly adhering to the letter of the law. As someone familiar with civil law, I was very positively surprised by the manner in which the Supreme Court commented on the extraordinary legal remedy submitted by the SSPO - Piperović told Television E.
However, Piperović stresses that in this case everyone in the judicial chain - starting from the investigating judge, through the High Court panel, the Court of Appeal, and up to the Supreme Court - unlawfully and illegally allowed the introduction into judicial practice of the term „off-record owner“.
Indeed, in the decisions of the investigating judge, the High Court panel, and even the Criminal Panel of the Supreme Court, the fact is silently overlooked that apartment No. 54 in Budva, located in the building known as „Perla“, which is registered in the cadastre as 100 percent owned by the company Bemax, is treated in the indictment as off-record property of former police official Zoran Lazović.
Attorney Piperović believes that this term cannot be considered a legal term and that it may be subject to political abuse.
LEGAL AND POLITICAL ABSURDITIES
He points out that in the most recent orders for conducting the investigation, Aleksandar Mijajlović and Ranko Ubović are designated as „concealed co-owners“ of Bemax.
- And when they addressed Mijajlović’s ownership of that apartment in Budva, although such ownership does not exist, the prosecutors stated that Ubović sold that property to Mijajlović. Now imagine this: a concealed co-owner sells to another concealed co-owner an apartment that is owned by Bemax - the attorney explains, illustrating the paradoxical situation.
According to Piperović, the Supreme Court should, through its rulings, simply erase the term „off-record owner“ from use, otherwise the door is opened to numerous political abuses, as was the case with apartments owned by Bemax.
Therefore, Piperović concludes that judges must respect their own signatures on decisions and judgments – „so that one day, when they retire, they will not be ashamed“.
With the Supreme Court ruling, the prosecution’s attempt to judicially secure a ban on the disposal and use of property in the cases of Lazović and Katnić has come to an end. However, the question of the survival or deletion of the distorted legal concept of the „off-record owner“ remains, for now, unresolved.