The Constitutional Court stressed that the Decree shall cease to be valid on the date of publication of its decision and dismissed request for suspension of applying individual acts and actions of calculating compensation on the basis of the contested Decree.
The President of the SNP, Srdjan Milic, said that the Constitutional Court put an end to the looting of citizens by this decision.
“The Constitutional Court of Montenegro accepted the proposal of the SNP today and found that the Government’s Decree, by which tax on fuel was introduced, was unconstitutional. Thus, the Constitutional Court has put an end to the looting of the citizens of Montenegro. It turned out that justice was slow but achievable,” Mr Milic said.
“Thanks to the initiative of the SNP, the prices of all types of fuels will be significantly lower in the future. We point out that the Government of Montenegro, on the basis of the unconstitutional tax, seized €9,557,185.48 from citizens’ pockets in the period from April 20th to October 6th,” Mr Milic concluded.
For Gosovic, such a decision was expected.
“The decision of the Constitutional Court, which found that the Decree of the Government, by which €0.07 fee for the highway construction and representative sports was introduced as an element for calculating retail prices of petroleum products, is expected. In fact, it is a basically unlawful act that produced very negative consequences to the detriment of citizens and legal entities in Montenegro”, Mr Gosovic said.
He stressed that five independent MPs submitted initiative for reviewing the constitutionality of the Decree a day after it had been adopted, on April 21st, 2015.
“However, the Constitutional Court took nearly 6 months to decide on the submitted initiative, although the it had concluded that this was the case of a wider social significance which should be considered as a priority”, Mr Gosovic reminded.
However, he added, the Constitutional Court did not accept their proposal to issue a decision ordering the oil companies in Montenegro not to apply the Government’s Decree in the process of calculating the maximum retail prices of petroleum products, until the final decision of the Constitutional Court was made.
Since the Government’s Decree shall expire on the date of publication of the Court’s decision in the Official Gazette of Montenegro, Mr Gosovic emphasised it was necessary that the decision was published in the shortest possible time in order to avoid further producing legal consequences.
