In the repeated parliamentary debate on the proposal of amendments to the Law on Internal Affairs, representatives of the Government of Montenegro, specifically the Ministry of the Interior, have a new opportunity to provide answers and additional explanations to the following questions:
- Why did the Ministry of the Interior, during the preparation of this act, fail to comply with regulations on public involvement, that is, why were there no public consultations, no invitation for representatives of non-governmental organisations to join the working group, nor a public discussion on the draft law?
- What could have been done in the past three years to avoid the “emergency” situation of a shortage of personnel in the police?
- Why, despite our numerous warnings, has the personnel plan not been adopted for four years?
- Is the number of systematised positions realistically planned, given that it is now over 500 more than in the systematisation plans from the period before 2020?
- How many job openings are truly necessary, and how many are expected to be announced by December 31, 2025, when the application of the proposed solutions expires? Have the current heads of organisational units already assessed the need for new hires?
- How many new employees can be trained annually, considering the available resources needed to conduct training?
- What is the planned structure of the members of the commission for assessing knowledge, skills, and competencies?
- How long will the hiring procedure take under the proposed legal amendments, considering that one of the reasons for the amendments is that the regular hiring process is too slow?
- What additional integrity mechanisms can the Ministry of the Interior offer to the public to dispel doubts about new political appointments through the misuse of the proposed procedures?
- What authorities will the newly employed staff at the Police Directorate be able to exercise (and thus what tasks will they perform) in their first year of service if they have not yet completed police training, until the training is finalised?
Answers to these questions are important, especially because these are systemic changes that did not involve the public, and the provided explanations did not address them.
