Our researchers, Marko Sošić and Dina Bajramspahić participated in the third training on investigating corruption in the police forces organized by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF). The topic was: “Evaluation of Research results” and it gathered representatives of civil society organizations dealing with security issues in the Western Balkans.
The workshop was held in Sofia (Bulgaria), June 13-14 and it was hosted by the Bulgarian Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD).
Some of the topics that were elaborated through 8 sessions:
Evaluation instruments: Risk Assessment (risk assessment for corruption)
Comparative practice: tackling corruption at the Romanian Ministry of Interior;
Case study as a methodological approach;
Evaluation of anti-corruption strategies and how to apply best practices in order to improve the Police Integrity;
Corruption prevention;
Investigating corruption at border crossings;
Corruption risks in public procurement for the police;
Challenges in investigating police corruption in the Western Balkans.
In addition to the capacity building, through this project DCAF provided mentorship in analysis of police corruption development to the civil society organizations participating in the program.
The Institute alternative research results on the effects of the Government of Montenegro strategic activities in tackling corruption within the police will be published by August 31.
Citizenship in Montenegro is defined exclusively as the legal link between the individual and the state, and it does not entail any ethnic affiliation.
The 2008 Montenegrin Citizenship Act, which has been amended first in 2010 and twice in 2011, posits this country’s citizenship policy, which is – compared to the neighbouring countries – a rather restrictive one. This restrictiveness is a direct outcome of Montenegro’s political history after the fall of Yugoslavia. While it is a prerogative of the sovereign state to regulate the matter of inclusion and exclusion, there are a number of counts on which the legal and implementation aspects of the 2008 Montenegrin Citizenship Act could be improved.
Some of the points, presented in this analysis, may be required in the context of broader human rights standards required in the process of accession to the European Union. Other points, and especially the facilitated access to citizenship to the socially vulnerable or marginalised groups should be considered by the Montenegrin authorities on humanitarian and/or compassionate grounds.
The agreement between the Parliament and the Government should as soon as possible define the importance of continuous dialogue and coordinated action of the two branches of power in the negotiations on Montenegro’s membership in the European Union.
Since defining the Parliament’s role in the European integration process was delayed for two years, and in this regard, working group within the parliament has been working for some time now without any progress on defining the Resolution, so this obligation became even higher priority. Resolution must precisely determine role of the Committee on European integration towards informing the public about the European integration process; gathering of civil society organizations, interest groups, and representatives of all branches of power related to issuing guidelines for progress in the negotiations and consensus on important issues regarding this process; follow up of the Government’s Communication Strategy implementation.
In addition to the Committee on European Integration, important role of other committees in the negotiation process, shouldn’t be forgotten (seven committees involved in the process of checking the conformity of national legislation with the EU acquis). Therefore, parliamentary committees that showed interest should be enabled to consider negotiating positions and discuss important issues in the negotiations process.
Finally, monitoring of the Government’s activities can be strengthened by Committee’s quarterly reports on the action plans implementation and negotiation progress. As a reminder, this practice existed when considering the (monthly) reports on the implementation of the Action Plan for Monitoring Implementation of Recommendations from the European Commission.
The allegations of Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Welfare published in the article of Daily news „Pobjeda“ entitled “Equal Opportunities for all”, has challenged AYDM and Institute Alternative to once again argue the reasons why is necessary to make a new Proposal of the Strategy for Development of Social and Child Protection for the period 2013-2017.
In the introductory part of the text reads: “The Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare concluded on Monday a public discussion on a three-year strategies on development of social and child protection and on social protection of elderly people”. However, AYDM claims that the Ministry issued a public call for consultations which lasted for 15 days from the May 27th, when the public call was made. During the consultations, Ministry held just one round table, on June 4th in Podgorica, although the Working Group had agreed to hold a round table for the northern region of Montenegro, in Bijelo Polje. This situation along with the tight deadlines for consultations breached the practice of making consultation process fully transparent and accessible to all.
AYDM disagreed with the statement that the proposed Strategy is based on the norms and standards of international documents and conventions, since these documents have arised from serious and thorough analysis of the situation and needs, which certainly have dropped out during the drafting of the proposed Strategy.
Proposal of the Strategy does not contain a report on the impact of the previous Strategy and identifies neither problems nor results that have arisen during the implementation of the previous strategy.
IA submitted similar comments on the proposed Strategy to the Ministry, in which it concludes that long-term results of the social and child protection reform are not envisaged, especially when it comes to the development of social services. IA considers measures for achieving the specific goals inadequately explained and expected effects of their implementation unsubstantiated.
Also, it remains unclear how it is expected “from this strategic document to provide an adequate level of social and child protection, create equal opportunities for all citizens, prohibit social exclusion and discrimination,” when certain vulnerable groups (e.g. homeless) are not even mentioned in the document. In its comments, IA pointed out that the Strategy does not include the analysis aimed at establishing the records of homeless people. It does not provide separate measures which would improve the status of this population either.
The proposed Strategy states that the main deficiencies of the existing system, are primarily caused by:
a) the lack of indicators for identification of vulnerable and social groups and other subsets;
b) the lack of system for monitoring the needs of socially vulnerable groups as well as the lack of records of undertaken protection measures.
Apart from these indicators defined by the Proposal of a Strategy, there are no qualitative indicators for the monitoring of the Strategy’s implementation or information that any analysis to identify the needs of population is done, although this activity was included in the previous Strategy.
AYDM and IA believe that the Ministry should also especially pay attention to defining these indicators in order to meet the needs of the population and substantiate the claims that this document provides equal opportunities for all.
AYDM and IA consider that the statement of the Deputy Minister- that “strategy must be adopted as soon as possible“ – is not eligible if we bear in mind that the new Strategy should have been adopted by December 2012. In addition, we believe that aligning the strategy with the legal framework is not “just a formality“ as the Deputy Minister stated, regarding the fact that the proposed Strategy is completely based on the provisions of the Law from 2005. The long-term priorities in the field of social welfare are thus based on the provisions of the Law which is to be abolished soon. That questions the whole approach during the Strategy drafting process. Superficial approach during the Strategy drafting is also reflected by the fact that the deadlines for the implementation of the measures proposed in the action plan is utterly inconsistent with the terms provided in the new Law on Social and Child Protection.
According to the claims stated in this release, IA and AYDM once again urge the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare to make a new Proposal of the Strategy aligned with the new Law. If the Government adopts the current proposal as the new national strategic framework, it will undermine the true intentions of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, to enhance social and child protection reform and improve the quality of life of the citizens of Montenegro, especially of vulnerable groups.
Not all the legal and institutional preconditions for the implementation of the new Law on Civil Servants and Employees are met, while the transparency of its application is also not satisfactory, Institute alternative (IA) argues.
On Monday, IA presented its first quarterly monitoring report on the Recruitment and Promotion in state bodies, in line with the new Law on Civil Servants and Employees, whose implementation was launched on January 1.
Until January 1, not all the legal preconditions for the implementation of the new Law were fulfilled. During the seventeen months transition period between entering into force and start of the Law’s implementation, only 4 out of 17 envisaged by-laws were adopted.Only three more acts were adopted by April 1.
“Delays in adoption of the acts for the implementation of the new Law had a negative impact on consistency of the application of the new rules regulating recruitment and promotion in state bodies”, Milena Janketic, one of the authors of the report, said.
She stressed that the Rulebook on the content and manner of keeping the Central Human Resources Record has not been adopted in the reporting period, while the lack of data within this information system was alarming.
The number of civil servants and state employees in the state administration bodies of Montenegro, defined by the Decree on Organization and Manner of Work of State Administration, according to the Central Human Resources Record, was 3739 as of April 1, although it is estimated that the total number of state employees and civil servants is approximately 10,500.
The data about the rest of 7,000 state administration’s employees are thus missing from the Central Human Resources Record, report states.
“Furthermore, only 6 bodies submitted the data about the grades of their employees into the Central Human Resources Record by April 1, 2013”, Janketic said, emphasizing that this represents an obstacle in the implementation of the Law, because the insight into the candidates skills should be partially based also on the insight into their grades.
Only 18 vacancies for job in state administration were announced in the reporting period. Still, excluding the appointment of heads of state administration bodies, only four candidates had gone through the newly prescribed procedures of testing the candidates’ skills, based on two separate vacancies.
Hence, the IA argues, it is too early for bringing conclusions about the consistency of the implementation of the Law’s new general rule, which prescribes candidates with the best abilities, expert and working skills, get job in state administration.
Yet, findings of the monitoring point to the lack of transparency in the implementation of the law.
“In other words, the Law is being interpreted in a way in which the realization of internal vacancies within one state body is being assigned to the state body itself instead to the Human Resources Management Authority which should have a central role in realization of all the vacancies”, Milena Milosevic, public policy researched in the IA, said.
Such practice raises doubt that, in cases of internal vacancies within state bodies, candidates’ abilities are not being tested at all.
Therefore, with an aim of enhancing the procedures for recruitment and promotion in state administration, the IA suggests the Human Resources Management Authority and state bodies to ensure the consistent application of legal provisions which clearly regulate competences of the authorities during realization of vacancies, including the procedures of testing candidates’ abilities.
At the Wednesday’s conference the IA announced that it will continue to monitor recruitment and promotion in state administration and to publish monitoring reports, with the support of Friedrich Ebert Fondation.
Proposed Strategy for development of Social and Child Protection relies on the abolished law and thus questions the long-term reform efforts in this area. Proposed Strategy reflects a superficial approach and the indifference of the state in defining long-term priorities in social and child protection.
In order to pinpoint certain inconsistencies, remind on the forgotten but planned measures and activities and give guidelines for further work on the new strategic framework, IA submitted comments on the proposed Strategy to the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.
IA pointed out the mismatch of the legislative and strategic frameworks. Exception from the practice to first adopt a strategy and define long-term priorities, and then the Law as a concrete measure, makes even more meaningless the fact that the proposed strategy relies on outdated terminology and provisions of the Law from 2005. The Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, as the proponent of the Strategy, thus brings unnecessary confusion and raises doubts whether its true intention is to enhance the social welfare reform and improve the quality of life of the Montenegrin citizens, especially of vulnerable groups.
The role of the Institute for Social and Child Care, whose establishment is envisaged by the new Law on Social and Child protection is not sufficiently promoted in proposed Strategy as the future coordinating body for the development of social services network. Moreover, the proposed Strategy does not even acknowledge the social services as a special right in social and child protection system, although the emphasis of the reform is on of the development of non-institutional forms of protection.
Proposed measures to achieve specific objectives of the strategy are not adequately explained nor the expected effects of their implementation justified.
While justifying some of the proposed measures, proposed Strategy calls on expert analyses, which are not publicly available and the public is not even aware that they are carried out.
The deadlines for the implementation of the proposed measures in the action plan are completely incompatible with the deadlines for the preparation of the by-laws deriving from the new Law on Social and Child Protection.
Proposed Strategy for development of Social and Child Protection needs to be withdrawn in order to create the Strategy aligned with the objectives of the reform and based on the new legislation and deadlines provided by Law. As the exception from the practice to first adopt a strategy has already been made, then further extension of the deadline for the adoption of the Strategy would not cause any damage if the proponent has a genuine intention to enhance social and child welfare reform.
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Our researchers, Marko Sošić and Dina Bajramspahić participated in the third training on investigating corruption in the police forces organized by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF). The topic was: “Evaluation of Research results” and it gathered representatives of civil society organizations dealing with security issues in the Western Balkans.
In addition to the capacity building, through this project DCAF provided mentorship in analysis of police corruption development to the civil society organizations participating in the program.
of the Government of Montenegro strategic activities in tackling corruption within the police will be published by August 31.
Not all the legal and institutional preconditions for the implementation of the new Law on Civil Servants and Employees are met, while the transparency of its application is also not satisfactory, Institute alternative (IA) argues.