Podgorica, 5 October 2010 – The charges laid against MANS by Nataša Brajović, the Inspector for the Protection of Space, constitutes an additional attempt to discourage those sectors of Montenegrin civil society that are invested in improving the transparency of state institutions and strengthening the accountability of their public servants and functionaries.
The lawsuit that MANS filed – and which seem to have been used as a pretext for Brajović to sue us in turn – is based on documentation that we obtained from the Ministry for Spatial Planning and the Environment as well as documents obtained from the Inspectorate for the Protection of Space. Our lawsuit is also based on the fact that the development in question is still standing in Perazić Dol, it still has not been demolished, and that measures to this end announced by Brajović have never been realized in actuality.
It is precisely for these reasons that in MANS’ lawsuit, we suggested that the relationship between Brajović, the investor (Barać) and the responsible Ministry be examined more closely in order to establish at which stage the demolition process was halted.
We could also ask what exactly Brajović was doing while the company of investor Barać was building the development and how it was possible for a development of such dimensions to evade her zealous inspection. Brajović will have the opportunity to answer this and other questions during the investigative process when she appears before a prosecutor.
As far as her moral and individual credibility is concerned, which Brajović claims was infringed upon by MANS, we believes that this is a question of her own perception, since we have never dealt with her morality nor are we interested in doing so as an organization. In our lawsuit, and given the information in our possession, we simply expressed doubts about her professional credibility and her capacity for enforcing the law, however it is up to the relevant government authorities to make a final determination on these questions.
Of course, the Perazić Dol case isn’t the only one in which Inspector Brajović has been involved, next week we will be submitting to the courts further information related to our lawsuit against Brajović in this and in other cases that MANS has been following.
Dejan Milovac
Director of the Urbanism Program
