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Round table: Do we need a Law on the Parliament?

“There are fundamental problems when it comes to precise defining of the relation between branches of power, but also in terms of further improvement of the oversight role of the Parliament in relation to the work of the Executive.”

When it comes to defining the relation between branches of power, developing a complete legal framework that would allow precise regulation of the jurisdiction of each one of them is persistently being delayed in Montenegro. This refers to the Law on Parliament, as well as the Law on Government. Regulating the work of the Executive by law and not by rules of procedure or by-laws, as was the case so far, could alongside adopting the Law on Parliament establish the conditions necessary for a more adequate implementation of the “checks and balances“ principle.

The Parliament of Montenegro needs to further strengthen its supervisory function in relation to the work of the Executive and there are many open questions in this regard. Some of them relate to the need to regulate more precisely the institutes of parliamentary question and parliamentary inquiry, to the lack of procedure for deliberating on motions submitted by the interested parties, as well as to the lack of compulsory reporting by the institutions on the implementation of conclusions of the Parliament as a general rule and not just upon request of the competent committee.

It is evident that regulating these issues demands their urgent improvement. The first step in this direction is the establishment of a working group in the Parliament, which would thoroughly address all aspects of strengthening the position and the role of the Parliament in the Montenegrin system of power. Consultations with stakeholders should begin in the early stage of work of the working group.

Institute Alternative organized the roundtable “Do we need the Law on Parliament?” precisely with the goal of opening up the question of regulating jurisdiction, organization and work of the Parliament; joint consideration by the stakeholders of the possibilities which the Law on Parliament could bring in that regard; and determining to what extent would the Law improve the position of the Parliament in the Montenegrin political system. The roundtable was attended by the representatives of all MPs’ clubs of the Parliament of Montenegro, civil society, as well as guests from the region – representatives of the Parliaments of Serbia and Macedonia.

This event was organized within the project “Analytical monitoring of the oversight function of the Parliament“, which is implemented by Institute Alternative, with the support of the Open Society Foundations – Think Tank Fund from Budapest.

Jovana Marović
Research Coordinator

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IA at the control hearing on the electricity deal

Stevo Muk, president of IA’s Managing Board, participated in the control hearing of the parliamentary Committee for Economy, Budget and Finance regarding the implementation of the agreement between the Government of Montenegro and A2A company. Other invited participants were Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Policy and Financial System Vujica Lazović, Minister of Economy, Vladimir Kavarić and representatives of Elektroprivreda Crne Gore AD Nikšić (EPCG), national energy company, Srđan Kovačević and Stefan Pastoria.

Selling of the shares of EPCG and cession of rights management company A2A has had a significant impact on the pricing of electricity. In this context, the important point is the expectation of A2A in terms of price increase for electricity rates and “obligations” of the Government and Regulatory Agency repeatedly communicated to the public.

Stevo highlighted a number of issues of importance for the discussion and suggested topic of public interest to the Committee members:

  • fulfillment of performance indicators,
  • methodology for calculating the cost of electricity and decisions of Regulatory Agency for Energy (RAE),
  • how the decisions are made in the Board of Directors of EPCG in which four out of seven members are from the Government, and in this context, approving multimillion contracts between the EPCG and A2A,
  • realization of the investment plan and the fate of EPCG funds in the accounts of commercial banks.

Stevo suggested the importance of rationalizing the costs of human resources in EPCG. He also pointed to the possibility of arbitrage between the A2A and the Government for Government’s alleged inability to collect claims (receivables) from Aluminum Combine (KAP) in the bankruptcy proceedings.

The interest of Institute alternative for this topic has continuously been guided by the need to protect public interest, the interests of electricity consumers, citizens and legal entities, especially in the process of setting the price of electricity and RAE’s decisions. IA’s engagement is the fruit of research related to the policy and practice of realizing public-private partnerships, as well as accountability and transparency in public companies.

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New report: Municipalities in the fight against corruption

As service providers and institutions responsible for the common interest of citizens, local self- governments are particularly vulnerable to corruption. The effects of corruption at the local level cause not only the stagnation of the economy, but also increased unemployment rate, decrease of trust in administration and so on.

Recognizing the need for stronger involvement of civil society organizations in this field, a project titled „Corruption at the local level- zero tolerance” has been initiated. It has been implemented by the Centre for Civic Education (CCE) in cooperation with the Institute Alternative (IE), NGO Bonum from Pljevlja and NGO Nada from Herceg Novi, with the support of the Delegation of the EU to Montenegro through IPA 2011 and co-financing of the Royal Norwegian Embassy. In line with the criterion of balanced representation of the northern, central and southern parts of the country, the project encompasses 14 Montenegrin municipalities: Bar, Budva, Cetinje, Danilovgrad, Herceg Novi, Kolašin, Kotor, Mojkovac, Nikšić, Pljevlja, Plužine, Podgorica, Rožaje and Tivat.

The intention of the authors of the monitoring report covering the period of implementation of the Local Action Plans for the fight against corruption (LAP) from 2009 to 2014 was to review the heretofore results in this field, provide an overview of implementation of the action plans, point out to problems and oversights which occurred during the implementation and planning, as well as to present useful recommendations for improving future local action plans.

Related news:

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Through participation against corruption – anticorruption mechanisms at the local level

In countries where corruption is all-present and represents an obstacle to structural reforms, improvement of business environment and financial sustainability, the role of all actors in eradication of this problem is extremely important. This analysis will examine the role of citizens, civil society organizations and directly elected representatives as actors in fight against corruption.

Key findings:

Although there are several forms of direct participation in decision– making process available to citizens of Montenegro at the local level, level of activism is low and generally expressed solely through participation in public debates and voting at local and national elections. However, even when it comes to participation in public debates, citizens exhibit low level of interest for the use of this mechanism. Thus, for example, only two citizens took part in the discussion on the Action Plan for fight against corruption in the Capital City. Situation is similar regarding submission of anonymous complaints. Local self-governments insufficiently involve citizens and non- governmental organizations in the decision-making on different issues of importance for improvement of life in the community. The comment primarily relates to organization of thematic debates, consultations and round tables. The obligation to organize working meetings once per year between the representatives of local NGOs and president of the municipal assembly is not functioning in practice, and the meetings between councillors and stakeholders before prior to the sessions of the local assemblies are also not held. Furthermore, councillors do not contribute to the content of the key strategic documents, and information about their work cannot be found on the official web sites of municipalities (municipal assemblies). The councillors insufficiently use the position they have to publicly express the ideas, problems and irregularities in the work of local self-government.

Montenegrin municipalities lack transparency. Apart from the fact that the Report on the situation in the area of access to information in Montenegro for 2013 does not contain information for seven municipalities, web sites of local self-governments do not have annual reports on conducted public procurements, information about concessions or contracts on public-private partnerships. The same applies to information on employment, which are in most cases incomplete. Reports on work of municipal secretariats solely contain information about implemented activities, but fail to provide information about problems and challenges local self-governments are facing in their work. Information about achieved successes is necessary, but citizens have the right to be regularly informed about the problems municipalities are facing as well.

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Torture of Aleksandar Pejanović must not remain unpunished

Aleksandar Pejanović, our fellow citizen, was brutally beaten twice by, according to information from the criminal trial, members of the special intervention police unit while in the police detention unit in Podgorica known as Betonjerka, between the 31 October and the 2 November of 2008. Court experts (three of them) recorded a combination of 19 heavy and light injuries on his entire body.

After five years and eleven months of trial, on 9 October 2014, just three weeks before the criminal prosecution was to become time barred, the High court in Podgorica reached a final verdict stating that the three police officers in charge of securing Pejanović in “Betonjerka“ had committed a criminal offence of Ill-treatment through assistance and sentenced them with three months of prison each. Those police officers opened the prison doors to the members of the special unit who had come in to beat Pejanović, i.e. they did nothing to stop them, and did not report what had happened. By the end of the trial, all three convicted officers, as well as the other two who were acquitted in the meantime, claimed that during the disputed period nothing suspicious had happened and that Pejanović had not been hurt at all. Police officer Goran Stanković was the only one who testified that the ill-treatment did happen and that it was “ordered from above”. This man, the only known “whistle-blower” of the Montenegrin police does not work there anymore. He claims that he abandoned his office because of the pressures and threats on his security.

Although the court found the three police officers guilty for enabling the beating and taking no actions to prevent it, it decided to sentence them at a minimum – with three months of prison, although it could have imposed penalties of up to three years. The court thus acted contrary to international standards and the explicit recommendation of the Committee against Torture (CAT) to Montenegro that the sentences must be proportionate to the seriousness of the crime. Moreover, if the convicted officers are to behave well in prison, there is a good chance they will stay there for only two months, and that is unless some new Pardon law is adopted by the Montenegrin Parliament, or they are pardoned by the President of state Filip Vujanović.

Can anyone seriously expect that such a lenient sentence would persuade other officers to refuse to comply with unlawful orders to terrorize citizens? Is this a way of encouraging the citizens to report police ill-treatment?

Let us not forget that in 2009 the Internal Control Unit (ICD) of the Police, led by Zoran Tomčić (now the Director of Forensics Centre of the Police Directorate), found that the police officers have not overstepped their authority in this case, thus obviously protecting the criminals in the police, which represents a criminal offence just like the offence for which the three officers have been convicted.

Six years after the crime was committed it is still unknown who ordered the beating of Pejanović, or who the members of the special police intervention unit that executed this order were. We are quite sure that all of them still work at the police, under the authority of the Police Director Slavko Stojanović and under the auspices of the Minister Raško Konjević, who have done nothing (known to the public) to punish the thugs or those who ordered the beating.

Additional concern is that senior public officials – Prime Minister Milo Đukanović and the former Police Director Veselin Veljović (now advisor to the President on defence and security) obstructed the investigation, because they never acted on the orders of the prosecutor to submit a list of members of the intervention unit who were on duty at the time when the crime was committed.

However, as noticed by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), the fact that the Prime Minister and the Police director failed to cooperate does not mean that the competent State Prosecutor – Ljiljana Klikovac (recently appointed to the Head of the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office) was supposed to instantly give up on further investigation, instead of making an effort to obtain the information in question through issuing of a search warrant, prosecuting those who obstructed the investigation, hearing all members of the intervention unit etc. We would like to remind that the CPT requested detailed comments of the Montenegrin authorities on these points, but the Government disregarded this (please see below).

Since it was finally determined that the crime related to late Aleksandar Pejanović within the police premises did occur, and that both the thugs and the ordering party remained unpunished, the Supreme State Prosecutor Ivica Stanković should put further investigation of this case on the top of his priority list, in order to establish the trust in rule of law in Montenegro. When the perpetrators of the crimes are police officers, the State Prosecutor’s Office is solely responsible for ensuring an impartial investigation. Mr. Stanković should also determine responsibility of the competent state prosecutor’s office for the ineffective processing of this case.

Human Rights Action, Tea Gorjanc-Prelević, executive director

Centre for Civic Education, Daliborka Uljarević, executive director

Institute Alternative, Stevo Muk, president of the managing board

APPENDIX 1:

Persons who were competent for prosecution of the responsible persons at the time the crime was committed still occupy the same positions, or have been even promoted to higher positions in the civil service:

– Milo Đukanović, former and current Prime Minister, the director of the Police Directorate reported directly to him, not he Minister of Interior Affairs at the time when this crime was committed (Police Directorate became part of the Ministry of Interior Affairs in 2012);

– Ljiljana Klikovac, former Basic State Prosecutor, whose work was criticized by CPT in its report, has been recently appointed to the Head of the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office; The Supreme State Prosecutor at the time when the crime was committed, from April 2008 to April 2013, was Ranka Čarapić;

– Veselin Veljović, former director of the Police Directorate, now covers the position of Advisor on defence and security to the President Filip Vujanović;

– Zoran Tomčić, former head of the Internal Control Unit of the Police, current Director of Forensics Centre of Police Directorate.

APPENDIX 2:

An excerpt from the report of the CPT on its visit to Montenegro in 2013, in relation to the case of Pejanović (HRA translation to Montenegrin), original document available at: http://www.cpt.coe.int/documents/mne/2014-16-inf-eng.html

NOTE: Immediately after the publication of the report, on 22 May 2014, HRA requested from the Government of Montenegro to translate the report into Montenegrin and publish it on its website, but this has not been done to date. Also, the Government has never provided detailed replies to the question of the CPT regarding this case, or at least it has not published these replies as a part of other replies to the report.

CPT report on the visit to Montenegro, paragraph 20: “In the course of the 2013 visit, the delegation examined one particular case concerning the alleged beating of X in November 2008 at Podgorica Police Detention Unit.

X was apprehended by the police on 30th October 2008 following his participation in mass street protests in Podgorica, and transferred to the police detention unit known as “Betonjerka”. According to different testimonies, an unidentified group of some ten masked police officers from the special intervention unit entered his cell on two occasions (between 31 October and 2 November 2008) and subjected him to kicks, punches and blows with truncheons. He was seen by a doctor following his release from police custody on 5 November 2008 and a combination of 19 heavy and light injuries were recorded on his entire body (and later confirmed by a court appointed forensic expert). The Podgorica District Prosecutor initially launched an investigation on 6 November 2008 and issued an indictment on 1 September 2009 for torture and ill-treatment against six officers who had been on duty with custodial tasks in the detention unit during the period when X was in police custody. In the course of the trial at the Podgorica District Court, one of the accused officers stated that the ill-treatment of X had been “ordered from above” and that it was inflicted on two occasions by unidentified members of the intervention police. The Podgorica District Prosecutor requested the Director of Police on 15 June 2010, and on two other occasions directly the Prime Minister himself, to indicate the names of the officers from the intervention police who were on duty on 31 October and 2 November 2008. However, the delegation was informed by the Podgorica District Prosecutor that no reply was ever received to any of those requests. And, as far as the delegation could ascertain, this is where the matter was left.

The Committee also notes that the Internal Control Unit (ICD) of the Police concluded in March 2009 that none of the police officers involved in the alleged beating of X had overstepped their authority.

Clearly, the above conclusions as well as the unwillingness of the senior officials concerned to provide the prosecution service with information it needed for a criminal investigation is of great concern. At the same time, it can be asked whether the prosecution service had no other means at its disposal to obtain the information in question (e.g. through the issuing of a search warrant). The CPT would like to receive the detailed comments of the Montenegrin authorities on these points.

The response of the Government of Montenegro, Ministry of Interior Affairs:

„There is a court proceeding before the High Court in Podgorica against three police officers who are suspected to have physically abused X. Following the appeal made to the high court, the Basic Court came to a liberating verdict for the police officers in question. The case has been forwarded to the High Court resulting in the suspension of the officers who will remain so until the closure of the case”.

APPENDIX 3:

Statement of Dalibor Kavarić, representative of deceased Pejanović and his family

In relation to the decision of the High Court in Podgorica, which upheld the conviction of the Basic Court in Podgorica against three police officers for beating of Aleksandar Pejanović, while being in custody at the police station in Podgorica, so called: Betonjerka (Concrete cell), from 31 October to 2 November 2008, I underline:

The lowest rank and least accountable police officers who did not have a strong enough protection to be released, were sentenced for this offense. The fact is that police officers Leković, Kljajević and Paunović did not directly beat Pejanović. Still, the nature of their term of office was not giving them a privilege to be observers of this event, they had to take all measures and actions to prevent the beating. Although officers Leković, Kljajević and Paunović were not direct perpetrators but practically a collateral damage in the event, their responsibility lies in their silence and concealment of direct perpetrators, by which they tried to help the perpetrators, and in that manner they agreed with their actions of beatings.

What in this event does not leave the impression that justice is served is the fact that those who in the dark, savagely beat a defenseless man still remain to work undisturbed for the police and they are still able to beat up people, because the practice and experience undoubtedly testifies that a criminal, although influenced by certain circumstances temporarily placates, but in the end, always repeats his crime. Also, the impression of justice is being grossly spoiled with the fact that those who are able to design and order this heinous crime continue to wear uniforms and are protected by their anonymity and mixed with other police officers thus with their further work and stay in the police they burden the same police, forcing on it the mortgage of a services in which such abomination could happen.

Until cold-blooded criminals who ordered and executed the crime against Aleksandar Pejanovic are discovered and prosecuted, this will affect the way people perceive vast majority of honest police officers, who will be subject to the interpretation that they are ready to commit such deeds.

Dalibor Kavarić, lawyer

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Parliamentary oversight in the area of security and defense – 2013 Monitoring Report and Impact Assessment

The intention of the authors of the Law on parliamentary oversight of security and defence sector, adopted towards the end of 2010, was to strengthen the control function of the Parliament of Montenegro and to introduce a more efficient oversight of the security and defence sector. After three years of the implementation of this Law, we tried to measure its impact, i.e. the impact of the work of the Committee competent for carrying out the parliamentary oversight of this sector, with a view to providing recommendations to enhance its effectiveness.

Conclusions with recommendations are presented in this report consisting of two parts. Traditionally, the first part concerns monitoring of the implementation of the Law in the third year of its enforcement1 with comparative data on the implementation of control instruments for at least three last years. In order to present the activities of the Committee in 2013, our researchers attended all sessions of the Committee which were open to public.

The second part of the report relates to the attempt to assess the systemic impact of this Law on state bodies from the security and defence sector which were subject to parliamentary oversight as well as an analysis of the opinions of representatives of state bodies which were subject to parliamentary oversight on effects of this control mechanism.

The impact of the work of the Security and Defence Committee is achieved through: initiating new laws, initiating the use of control mechanisms, adoption of concrete conclusions, adoption of amendments to the Government’s draft laws, addressing new issues significant for security and defence policy, proposals for resolution of problems, etc. In other words, its impact is reflected in delivering concrete changes and providing substantive answers to problems identified in the security and defence sector. These are some of the parameters we monitored while carrying out this research. We also analysed the positions and expectations of the representatives of security and defence institutions, their impressions on the results of the work of this Committee, we checked the extent to which conclusions were implemented, we analysed media content on parliamentary oversight, with a special emphasis on MPs’ and heads of state bodies’ statements.

During the research, we discussed these topics with the representatives of those state bodies which were directly or indirectly the subject of the Committee’s oversight or those who participated in its sessions during deliberations on their annual performance reports. We are grateful for the contribution to this report to:

  • Chairman of the Committee, Mevludin Nuhodžić,
  • Member of the Committee, Suljo Mustafić,
  • Minister of Interior, Raško Konjević,
  • Chief of Armed Forces General Staff, General Dragan Samardžić,
  • Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, Nada Ulićević,
  • Director of the Secret Data Protection Directorate, Savo Vučinić,
  • Director General at the Emergency Management Directorate, Mirsad Mulić,
  • Head of the Administration for prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing, Vesko Lekić,
  • Police Administration representatives: Petar Krstajić, Radovan Ljumović, Sead Frljučkić,
  • Head of the National Security Agency, Boro Vučinić,
  • Expert service of the Security and Defence Committee for delivering material related to the work of the Committee.

As it was the case in previous years, our work in this area, monitoring of the work of the Committee, impact assessment of the Law, as well as the preparation of the report were supported by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF).