Representative of the Ministry of Justice Ibrahim Smailovic said that the work of bankruptcy trustees is very complex because of which they have decided for a reform through the procedure of introducing licensing of wardens, keeping in mind the experiences in Serbia and Croatia. "It is necessary to introduce licenses for bankruptcy managers, which is the biggest novelty. The license will be issued by the Ministry of Justice for a period of five years, and exact conditions are required to issue a license," Smailovic stated. The president of the bankruptcy trustee, Milan Kastratovic, complained to the writers of the Draft Law on Bankruptcy that the Chamber's representatives were not involved in the working group.
"The public hearing was organized in bad timing, during the annual vacations, so it would be good to extend it. This draft has become virtually an amendment to the law on bankruptcy trustees, and I think that everything is quite contradictory and that this should yet to be discussed. We cannot be the only profession throughout the country in which there is a knowledge-based assessment carried out, and we are being put in an unenviable position," Kastratovic said.
He suggested that licensing should be done automatically for all the managers from the current list, and then continue to undergo training and further assessment of the performance of the trustee in proceedings by the bankruptcy counsel.
PHOTO: Zoran Đurić
The representative of former employees of the company Radoje Dakić in bankruptcy Milan Vukčević complained that the State Tax Administration had introduced bankruptcy in that company, and former employees found themselves in an absurd situation that the same judge of the Commercial Court decides on the fate of their claims, which is a final and executive verdict in their case, while he also previously proclaimed their verdict as a judge in the Basic Court. The lawyer and administrator Borislav Radovic assessed that the Draft Amendments to the Law on Bankruptcy are a bad legal solution. I generally believe that this law is against Prime Minister Markovic's government and against the rule of law. This is practically a piston in the wheels of the Government that is on the road to EU integration ... When I heard that the bankruptcy trustee lists should be revised, I have to say that I have not heard this word “revised” since I stopped reading the novels about Goli Otok, "said Radovic. He had achieved before the Constitutional Court the abolition of Article 25 of the Law on Bankruptcy and the discretion of the bankruptcy trustee by the bankruptcy judges. "With this Draft, you made a one-state strike against the rule of law. You do not respect the decision of the Constitutional Court," said Radovic.
The representative of the Union of Free Trade Unions MNE Ivana Mihailovic requested that all the employees in the company, through the upcoming revision of the Law on Bankruptcy Protection, need to be protected during bankruptcy proceedings regardless of when it started.
"Please see the recommendations of the International Labor Organization (MOR) to which the state has committed, but also humanity, above all, and the attitude towards our fellow citizens who are currently engaged in bankruptcy and have no working rights," Mihailovic said.
The president of MNE Layer’s Association Branislav Radulović indicated that the timing of the public hearing was not the most appropriate and suggested that it would be in the public interest to extend it.
"In MNE there is not too much specialist knowledge and I have to say as a professor who teaches economics and bankruptcy law, I myself have great dilemmas," Radulovic said.
Some engineers among the wardens do not know even how to write a complaint
Lawyer Nina Radovic noted as a significant problem that all the employees are allowed to perform the tasks of bankruptcy trustees, and that can be done, according to the applicable regulations, by football players and painters. "In my cases, I have a problem, for example, where the bankruptcy trustee is a professional engineer, and who does not understand the law at all, personally writes claims, appeals, even in very complicated cases, which causes total chaos in the legal system," Radovic said.
Text by Milorad Milosevic, on September 7th, 2018, read more at Vijesti
