Đurović: Continuation of the political activity of the Labor Inspectorate in assessing the legality of the appointment of Raonic

AUTHOR: M.J. GDNUS
"The finding of the Labor Inspection regarding the third illegal appointment of the general director of RTCG is proof that this inspection body is still under political influence. After recent changes in the legislation and the abolition of the Directorate for Inspection Affairs, the Ministry of Labor and Employment now exerts direct political influence over this inspection and social dialogue headed by Naida Nišić", stated in the press release of Goran Đurović, director of the Media Center.
The labor inspection and acting inspector Azren Vučetović, as Đurović claims, "deliberately misinterpret the facts in the process of appointing the general director of RTCG and treat the third appointment of the general director as another."
He reminds that the Law on the National Public Broadcaster RTCG stipulates in Article 35 that "the same person can be appointed as general director a maximum of two times". The acting inspector determines in his report that Boris Raonic was appointed three times, but considers that it is for two mandates (?) and that this does not violate the law, Đurović points out.
"The two previous illegal appointments of Raonic, regardless of the fact that they took place in a period shorter than the mandate established by law, represent an obstacle for his third appointment. If the legislator wanted to tie to the "mandate" the allowed number of years that a person can spend in the position of general director , then it would be written that way. The law precisely linked to the "appointment" the possibility of electing the same person to the position of general director," states Đurović.
Also, he points out, the acting inspector, in the first-instance decision, accepts that Raonic's work experience also includes the years he spent illegally (according to final court rulings) as general director.
The Labor Law precisely established that work experience "means time spent in a casual relationship and professional training in accordance with the law, in the qualification of the level of education."
"How is it possible that the three years spent illegally as the general director of RTCG can be counted as legal work experience and included in the necessary minimum of 5 years of work experience, which is what a candidate for the general director of RTCG must have? How is it possible that a parvo is born out of injustice?
Acting inspector Azren Vučetović in his inspection report nevertheless makes a deviation and announces that only the court can determine on the merits whether the time spent by someone illegally in office can be treated as legal work experience," notes Đurović.
Of course, as he adds, in today's transmission of the inspection findings, RTCG hides this sentence from the public in order not to deepen doubts about the findings of the acting inspector and to mislead the public that the findings of the Labor Inspectorate are inviolable in terms of the assessment of the legality of the procedure.
The reliability of the findings of the Labor Inspection and the findings of the second-level body (competent ministry) is best shown by the judgment of the Administrative Court from April this year, which annulled the decision of the Inspection and the Ministry that the inspection bodies cannot review the decisions of the RTCG Council, Đurović believes.
After 28 months, the Administrative Court accepted the lawsuit of the Media Center and annulled the decision of the former Ministry of Economic Development from the 42nd government of Zdravko Krivokapić, which confirms the first-instance decision of the Labor Inspectorate, and which rejects the evaluation of the legality of the procedure for appointing the general director of RTCG conducted in August 2021.
He reminds that the Labor Inspectorate refused to determine the legality of the procedure for appointing Raonic in August 2021 and June 2023, declaring it incompetent. Now, says Đurović, apparently the Labor Inspectorate has become competent, but it is still doing its work illegally.
The third appointment of Raonic to the post of general director of RTCG will be assessed again by the court in a procedure that will last several years, emphasizes Đurović.
"There is a high probability that Raonic, with political support, will illegally spend 7 years in the position of General Director of RTCG. The damage caused to the budget of RTCG, i.e. the budget of all citizens, is so far over 160,000 euros (illegally paid salaries of Raonic).
During all this time, from 2020 until today, no one in the authorities thought of not putting pressure on the Labor Inspectorate, to extend the competences of the Protector of Property and Legal Interests of Montenegro to public companies (so that they could start the procedure to return Raonic's illegally acquired earnings and others similar to him).
RTCG and other institutions are still trapped, and the fact that representatives of almost all political parties got the opportunity to talk about what they want on RTCG after 2020 does not mean that the public service has become much better. "RTCG is still, as well as until 2020, not allowed to criticize the government because the general director has been blackmailed and his current political mentors Andrija Mandić, Milojko Spajić, Milan Knežević can remove him from his position whenever they want," concludes Đurović.