Podgorica, (MINA-BUSINESS) – The Constitutional Court has initiated a new procedure to assess the constitutionality and legality of the rate the Central Bank (CBCG) uses to calculate fees it charges for its services.

 

The Constitutional Court recalled that the constitutional review was initiated after the CBCG amended the contested regulation on two occasions, before it had been informed of the Court’s legal views.

 

“The Court finds that this formally creates conditions for dismissing the initiative, without substantively eliminating potential unconstitutionality, thereby calling into question the principle of the rule of law,” the Court stated in a press release.

 

On 15 October, deciding on an initiative submitted by the Protector of Property and Legal Interests, the Constitutional Court initiated a procedure to assess the constitutionality and legality of the CBCG's rate. Before the decision was delivered to the parties so they could familiarize themselves with the Court’s legal positions, the CBCG amended the contested document on 20 November.

“This led the Constitutional Court to grant a request, on 3 December, to reconsider its own decision, that is, to re-examine the amended CBCG's rate,” the Court explained.

 

Although that ruling was not sent to the parties at that time so they could act upon it, the CBCG adopted a new decision on rate on 15 December, proposing that the Court suspend the proceedings on the grounds that the contested regulation had ceased to apply.

 

“The Constitutional Court decided to initiate the procedure on its own because the Court’s decisions could not be delivered to the parties precisely due to the two amendments carried out by the CBCG, without it having been informed of the constitutional reasons that led the Court to initiate the procedure,” the press release reads.

 

The Court stated that this approach does not uphold the principle of the rule of law, but merely formally creates the conditions for dismissing the initiative.

 

„Additionally, the Court initiated the procedure again because the CBCG Council, even in the new decision on rate, failed to prescribe sufficient and measurable criteria for determining the level of fees charged for the services provided by the bank,” the Constitutional Court stated.

 

The Court recalled that EU directives and regulations provide guidance on how fees may be calculated, but that at the national level it is the obligation and responsibility of the CBCG Council to comply with the constitutional principles governing such regulation.

 

“The Constitutional Court considers that, although a new decision with additional reasoning has been adopted, from the perspective of the constitutional requirement of the rule of law, the criteria and actual costs justifying the differentiation between the Main State Treasury and other payment system participants remain unclear,” the Court stated.

 

Accordingly, the CBCG is required to provide clear criteria explaining why the fee applicable to the state treasury is determined on a percentage basis, while fees for other payment system participants are fixed, particularly in light of EU regulations and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.