TRAVEL REPORT The Hon. Michael Atkinson MP Attorney-General ...

international law and specifically, adopting the Rome International CriminalCharter .The new laws with the new penalties were adopted through modification andamendment in 2002 . The death penalty was removed, replacing it by 30years imprisonment . A long debate took place during the drafting process asto whether to use life imprisonment or introduce long imprisonment .Eventually it was decided that the longest penalty should be 30 years .Montenegro has two institutions that deal with the Parole System :The first one is the Mercy release which is granted by the President ofRepublic . The prisoner submits a request and states the reasons, forinstance, health . If the crime is not serious and was done some years ago,the request first is examined by the Charter that originally imposed thesentence . Then it is forwarded to the Prosecutor or the State Attorney foropinion, then the Ministry for Justice forms opinion . The recommendations goto the President . This is the exception, rather than the rule and if the fileshows that the person is not a recidivist .The second is Parole . The law says that a person who has served half of thesentence can file for release and is then sent for prison management . Prisonmanagement offer opinion on the prisoners' behaviour . A special committeeappointed by Minister of Justice receives the report . The committee is head bya number of people :" The head of Law School Crime Professor" Supreme Court Justice" Prosecutor" Director of Prison or Governor" Deputy of Minister of Interior" Minister of Justice" Minister of HealthThere is another institution in the law on enforcement on criminal sanctionsthat gives the governor or director of the Prison the power to grant athree-month early release if the prisoner has served two thirds of thesentence .There are two prisons - the larger one is some 10 kilometres away fromPodgorica, the second in a small town in the north, which usuallyaccommodates prisoners serving short sentences . The central one, nearPodgorica is a semi-open, semi-closed unit with 650 prisoners and the prisonin north has about 70 to 80, so in total there are about 750 prisoners .The question of abolishing the death penalty was not political for one simplereason . It was during the period for accession to the Council of Europe andabolition of the death penalty was a condition . It was passed unanimously bythe Parliament . However, there was public debate, and if a referendum washeld on the question, it would have been kept . During the public debate evenrenowned experts on law were convinced that it was necessary to keep theTravel Report, Hon . Michael Atkinson, MP. and Ms. Vini Ciccarello MP ., August, 2004 109