Part One
GENERAL PROVISIONS
Chapter I
BASIC RULES
Rights of Detained Persons
Article 5
(1) Persons deprived of liberty by a competent public authority shall be immediately informed in their language or in a language they understand about the grounds for their apprehension and, at the same time, informed that they are not obliged to make a statement, that they have a right to a defence attorney of their own choice and to request that a person of their choosing be informed on their deprivation of liberty as well as a diplomatic consular representative of a state whose nationals they are or a representative of appropriate international organization if they are stateless persons or refugees.
Part One
GENERAL PROVISIONS
Chapter I
BASIC RULES
Right to Use One’s Own Language in Criminal Proceedings
Article 8
(1) The criminal proceedings shall be conducted in the Montenegrin language.
(2) Parties, witnesses and other persons participating in the proceedings shall have the right to use their own language or the language they understand in the proceedings. If proceedings are not conducted in a language those persons understand, interpretation of statements and translation of documents and other written evidence shall be provided.
(3) Persons referred to in paragraph 2 of this Article shall be instructed of their right to interpretation, and they may waive that right if they understand the language in which the proceedings are being conducted. A note shall be made in the record that the participants of the proceedings have been so instructed, and their statement thereto shall also be recorded.
(4) Interpretation shall be entrusted to an interpreter.
Part One
GENERAL PROVISIONS
Chapter I
BASIC RULES
Language Used for Presenting Submissions to Courts and for
Remitting Submissions by Courts
Article 9
(3) Court shall issue summonses, decisions and other writs in the Montenegrin language.
(4) If the language of a minority is also in the official use in the court, the court shall deliver writs in that language to persons belonging to the respective national minority if they have used that language in the course of the proceedings. Those persons may request that writs be delivered to them in the Montenegrin language.
(5) An accused person in detention, a person serving a sentence or a person against whom a security measure in a medical institution is being enforced, shall also receive a translation of the writs referred to in paras. 1 and 3 of this Article in the language used by this person during the proceedings.
Part One
GENERAL PROVISIONS
Chapter VII
EVIDENTIARY ACTIONS
4. HEARING OF THE ACCUSED PERSON
Interrogation of the Accused Person through Interpreters
Article 106
(1) The hearing of the accused person shall be carried out through an interpreter in cases envisaged by this Code.
(2) If the accused person is deaf, the questions shall be asked in writing, and if s/he is mute, s/he shall be asked to answer in writing. If the hearing may be performed in such a manner, a person with whom the accused person is able to communicate shall be summoned as an interpreter.
(3) If the interpreter has not previously taken an oath, s/he shall take the oath stating that s/he would faithfully communicate questions put to the accused person as well as statements given by the accused person.
(4) Provisions of the present Code referring to expert witnesses shall be applied accordingly to interpreters.
1. The official languages of the Court shall be Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. The judgements of the Court, as well as other decisions resolving fundamental issues before the Court, shall be published in the official languages. The Presidency shall, in accordance with the criteria established by the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, determine which decisions may be considered as resolving fundamental issues for the purposes of this paragraph.
2. The working languages of the Court shall be English and French. The Rules of Procedure and Evidence shall determine the cases in which other official languages may be used as working languages.
3. At the request of any party to a proceeding or a State allowed to intervene in a proceeding, the Court shall authorize a language other than English or French to be used by such a party or State, provided that the Court considers such authorization to be adequately justified.
2. Where there are grounds to believe that a person has committed a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court and that person is about to be questioned either by the Prosecutor, or by national authorities pursuant to a request made under Part 9, that person shall also have the following rights of which he or she shall be informed prior to being questioned:
(c) To have legal assistance of the person's choosing, or, if the person does not have legal assistance, to have legal assistance assigned to him or her, in any case where the interests of justice so require, and without payment by the person in any such case if the person does not have sufficient means to pay for it; and
2. Requests for cooperation and any documents supporting the request shall either be in or be accompanied by a translation into an official language of the requested State or one of the working languages of the Court, in accordance with the choice made by that State upon ratification, acceptance, approval or accession. Subsequent changes to this choice shall be made in accordance with the Rules of Procedure and Evidence.