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It’s a long way from a law to USKOK

Dug je put od zakona do USKOK-aIn Montenegro, the corruption flourishes. As a state and as a society, we are least successful in rooting out the high-level corruption, although we don’t have adequate remedy for the one at the lower levels. A successful fight against this phenomenon primarily involves increased number of criminal charges, legally binding indictments and verdicts, which completely shifts the focus from the hitherto legal improvements to the activities of the police, the judiciary and the Prosecutor’s Office. And in this triangle of institutions not many components work properly. Cooperation between the police and the Prosecutor’s Office, including the exchange of data, is extremely weak. Court delays are very common which can be seen from the fact that we even lack verdict in cases where investigations have been successful. The Prosecutor’s Office is very passive, which is proven by a small number of investigations carried out at the initiative of this institution, failure to act on the basis of allegations of abuse which can be found in reports of state institutions and the media, decreased number of binding indictments for criminal acts of corruption, as well as the transfer of a number of cases from one year to next one. In addition, the selectivity in the fight against high-level corruption is present, or in other words, exclusive acting of the competent authorities in cases where political support is obvious.

In order to respond to these challenges, the Government has started creating a new institutional framework, which envisages the establishment of the Agency for prevention of the corruption and Special State Prosecution, with all its hopes lied in them. Therefore, the mere existence of those institutions should undoubtedly convince us in the firm commitment to the fight which will make the corruption vanish from our society as swept with the magic wand.Hence, these days, all eyes are on the appointment of the Special Prosecutor, who will be at the forefront of the Special Prosecutor’s Office, and directly responsible to the Chief State Prosecutor. Three candidates: prosecutor, judge and lawyer. One experienced at “the top position” for the fight against corruption and organized crime, but with no results that would recommend her for a new appointment. The second one is Chief State Prosecutor’s favourite, who fought with his fists to have a say in the appointment, which is why we have to give a slight advantage to this candidate. Third, as speculated these days in the media, is supported by the DPS, which could again be a “trap” in order to think that the candidate was elected without the direct support of the ruling party. Such a conclusion was imposed in the choice of regulations for the appointment of the Special Prosecutor, as the sharp controversy between the Chief State Prosecutor and the then Minister of Justice seemed more like a “camouflage” of what DPS actually wants, and that is a bit more of discretion for the election, whosever side it was, and a little less focus on the professional qualifications of candidates.

Either way, with the appointment of the Chief Special Prosecutor and ten Special Prosecutors which is expected to happen by the end of a month, together with the Law on the Special Prosecutor’s Office adopted at the beginning of year, institutional and legal preconditions for a stronger and more compact organizational structure of the Prosecution for the fight against high-level corruption and organized crime will be achieved. However, as can be seen from the examples of countries that are more ahead in the process of democratization than us, it is clear that this is only a small step and that in practice problems from the beginning of the process will recur. A deflection from such practices is the key to success. There is an unpopular phrase in a political discourse that is the cure for all these ills, but let’s avoids it and use the vocabulary of results.

What should be done then? I was asked recently by a student from the York University to answer several questions related to the integration and democratization of the countries of the Western Balkans. One of the questions was: “What makes Croatia different example in the EU integration process? Mentality? Are the Croats more Europeans than other nations of the Western Balkans?”Maybe. But here’s what this mentality looks like this on the example of Croatian special prosecutor’s office. The Bureau for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime, known as USKOK, has reached the level of conviction in 95% of cases by 2012 and has prosecuted the former prime minister, former Vice president, former generals and other senior officials. The emphasis is on their titles, but also on the part “former”. Political support for the work of this body has been provided at the slow pace. The original solutions which have envisaged the competence of USKOK have been modified twice in order to ensure good cooperation with the police and the courts.

Key developments in the Croatian fight against corruption are telling us that we are still going to face an exhaustive struggle with the mentality, clientelism, decades-long control of all state structures by a political party. There is a long way from the adoption of a law to USKOK. In other words, the institutions should be protected, not public officials.

Dr. Jovana MAROVIĆ
Research coordinator at Institute Alternative and the member of the working group for the Chapter 23

Text originally published in the ,,Forum” of Daily Vijesti

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Apply to work in IA: Young Professional Development Program TTF

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Young professionals who have recently finished their Masters or Ph.D. studies in the field of social sciences are welcome to apply for a six-month-long fellowship at Institute Alternative.

During their work, young professionals will have an opportunity to engage in policy-relevant research under the mentorship of our research coordinator.

The final product of the research process will be a policy paper or a policy brief formulated within the framework of one of IA’s research areas.

With this initiative, Think Tank Fund (TTF) aims at supporting up to 15 ‘returnees’ who have recently finished their Masters or Ph.D. studies in one of the OECD countries to assume posts in think tanks interested in attracting young staff.

Candidates need to fulfill all of the below-mentioned criteria:

  • Have graduated in the past three years with a Ph.D., LL.M or M.A. degree in social sciences and humanities from universities in the OECD countries;
  • Be between 23 and 35 years of age at the time of application;
  • Be a citizen or a permanent resident of Montenegro;
  • Be fluent in written and spoken English alike, as well as the working language of the host organization.

Application process:

  1. If you are interested in working at Institute Alternative and you fulfill all the necessary criteria, please send your CV and motivational letter to Jovana Marović, research coordinator at jovana@institut-alternativa.org.
  2. After having been selected by the host organization (Institute Alternative), the candidate will apply to the Think Tank Fund directly.

Candidates should apply to IA by August 20, 2015.

Find out more about the application process on this link.

More details on the TTF Program can be found here.

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Press Release: Publicly About Internal Control

Ministry of Finance has finally published the PIFC Report, waiting for the Parliament, SAI and the public

We welcome the decision of the Ministry of Finance to publish a Consolidated report on the system of public internal financial control (PIFC) for 2014. Reports for the previous years have been classified with the designation RESTRICTED, as opposed to good practices, the recommendations of the European Commission and the decision of the Administrative Court.

The report was adopted yesterday by the Government and published seven years after the adoption of the Law which provides the establishment of the system of internal controls, bringing a handful of interesting data about how they actually work.

There are currently 60 internal auditors employed in the public sector, who have conducted 114 internal audits and have issued 454 recommendations during the 2014. Internal auditors have been auditing public procurement, budgeting process, invoice payments, payroll files, business travels. Of the total number of issued recommendations, less than half of them have been implemented, and almost 18% of them have been implemented partially. It should be noted that these statistics are self-reported by internal auditors, without additional reviews, so they should not be taken as completely reliable.

Only two ministries have the number of internal auditors who are allocated as stipulated by the Law. Therefore we have the current state where enormous budgeting units, such as Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ministry of Economy and others have only one auditor each, while some ministries don’t even have that one, such as Ministry of Justice (with the budget of 9.4 millions).

There is a particular problem in the reporting of budget users to the Ministry of Finance. Only 69% of the budget users have delivered a Report on the Financial Management and Controls, and those that have provided it, failed to submit complete data in all cases. Due to these problems, we have proposed penal provisions for failure to report during the last Law amendments, but neither proposer of the law nor the MPs have taken our proposal into consideration.

There are problems in the implementation of the conclusions given within the last year report, out of which only one has been implemented completely, and the remaining five only partially. Majority of local self-governments have failed to implement those conclusions.

One of the conclusions of the Report is that all public sector entities should establish a system for reporting and identifying irregularities and abuse, despite the existence of the budget inspection of the Ministry of Finance.

Now that the data on internal audits are public, other actors should put pressure on budget users to meet their legal obligations and to establish a functional system that will prevent abuse and inefficient use of public funds.

We appeal to media to monitor the implementation of Government’s conclusions and keep constant pressure on the budget users. We invite the State Audit Institution to pay attention to the statistics which the internal auditors report on the implementation of recommendations and to check their veracity. We invite the Parliamentary Committee for Economy, Finance and Budget to organize a special session for reviewing this report and to adopt its own conclusions, whose implementation will follow in the forthcoming period. Also, the special attention should be dedicated to the reports of those budgetary spending units which are not a part of the consolidated report as they are reporting directly to the Parliament (such as the Ombudsman, the National Security Agency, the Agency for protection of personal data and the free access to information, etc.).

Marko Sošić
Public Policy Resercher

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Depoliticisation of public administration: How to break a vicious circle?

The “embrace” of the ruling party and the state, present in Montenegro for more than two decades, has a negative effect on depoliticisation of Montenegrin public administration, said Milena Milošević, researcher at Institute alternative at the conference organised by German Aspen Institute and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia.

The conference „Democratic Governance and Public Administration Reform in the Western Balkans“ was held in Belgrade on June 15 – 18, 2015.A representative of the Institute alternative (IA) was a speaker at the panel discussion, within she presented the paper “Impediments to Depoliticization in the Western Balkans: Case of Montenegro”.Milena Milošević has reminded that the need for depoliticisation of the public administration in Western Balkans is a “vicious circle”, bearing in mind that the politicians are expected to effectively implement the requirements of the European Union, who are increasingly political rather than technical and economic, and could have painful consequences for those who are expected to follow.

Even though all countries in the region share similar post-communist legacy, our researcher recalled that the specificity of Montenegro is a party system with a predominant party, characterised by the blurred boundary between the state and the party.

Also, she pointed out that the public sector in the country is still bloated and counts over 50 000 people, which represents more than a third of total employment in the country with about half a million voters.

In Montenegro, the argument that there are too few positions in the public sector and too many voters, therefore, is not applicable,” she added.

Our representative also reminded of the IA research results in the field of public administration, employment in state and local authorities and the professionalisation of a senior civil service.

„Limiting discretion in employment is a key for establishing a merit system in public administration. However, our findings show that the new legislation failed to significantly limit the arbitrariness in employment in state bodies”.

In order to ensure a sustainable impact on the changes in the country, we need strong institutions, an it could hardly be institutions whose leading positions are not filled on the basis of merit and objective criteria, reminded Milosević.

“Although the position of senior managers and heads of authorities are, in theory, professionalised, maybe even more than in some EU countries, according to our findings, about 90 managers are simultaneously members of management and advisory bodies of political parties currently in power. Additionally, there is no special competency framework for these positions, and even though Human Resources Management Authority has adopted a special pilot training program for their professional training, senior managers are still not attending them end have no awareness of the need for further professional development. “

The main agents of change, considering the previous limitations, may not be the institutions themselves, but they must have the support of the civil society organisations which are already playing an important role in monitoring the implementation of reforms, forming coalitions across the region and advocating depoliticisation, which is essentially a long – term cultural change, Milošević concluded.

The conference of the German Institute, organised for the first time at the capital of Serbia, had involved a number of senior representatives and renowned experts from the region and the EU.

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Joint Press Release of the four members of the OGP Operational Team

All members of the Operational Team from the civil sector resigned today from the membership of the Government’s OGP Operational Team.

Four members of this working body from the civil society organizations – Boris Marić, Dina Bajramspahić, Milica Kovačević and Vuk Maraš resigned after majority of members from the Government of Montenegro today voted against the proposal of civil society organizations to urgently organise a special, open to the public session of the Operational Team, whereby it would be discussed on reasons why the Government decided to de facto dismiss current Operational Team by passing a new Decision a week ago.

Detailed reasons for resignations are in the text of the resignation, which you can find below.

OGP

Boris Marić, (CCE)

Dina Bajramspahić, (IA)

Milica Kovačević, (CDT)

Vuk Maraš, (MANS)

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The Special One

The key dilemma that arose during the adoption of the Law on Special Prosecutor’s Office was whether Chief State Prosecutor should propose the Chief Special Prosecutor. This dilemma was solved in favor of Chief State Prosecutors who now has the additional responsibility for the appointment, but also for the work and results of the Chief Special Prosecutor.

Three (3) persons have submitted their candidacies for the position of Chief State Prosecutor, while eleven candidates have applied for the position of Special Prosecutors. Each candidate from those who applied for the Chief Special Prosecutor’s position is representing each “branch” of the justice system (judiciary, prosecution, and advocacy). Among the candidates for the Special prosecutors 6 of them has a background carrier as State prosecutors, out of which 4 of them are incumbent Deputy Special Prosecutors, one is Deputy of High State Prosecutor in Bijelo Polje, and one is holds the position of the Deputy Basic State Prosecutor in Podgorica; 3 candidates from the judiciary: one at the position of the Judge of Commercial Court while 2 hold the positions of Judges of the Basic courts; 2 lawyers, out of which one is the Disciplinary Counsel at the Bar Association.

What is worrisome is the lack of bigger competition for these positions. It turns out that he will not choose ten of them, but he will choose only one that will not be appointed. If we had not fought for the right to candidacy for lawyers and judges, Đurđina Ivanović would have been the only candidate of the Chief State Prosecutor, and we would have only six candidates for the positions of Special Prosecutors. We can easily conclude that the atmosphere is not favorable for prominent lawyers to submit their candidacies for this important public duty.

The criteria stipulated by the Law are expertise (professional development and published scientific papers) and the ability to exercise prosecutorial duties, work experience on criminal cases, the quantity and quality of work, work motivation, communication skills, ability to make decisions and understanding the role of the state prosecutor in society. Four last sub-criteria are subjected to the opinion given by the Supreme State Prosecution, Supreme Court and the Executive Board for prosecutors, judges and lawyers, respectively. It will be interesting to observe how incumbent Special Prosecutor’s and her colleagues’ work will be assessed by her colleagues, and how will the Judge from the Appellate Court assess the work of their colleague.

We can hardly find any media stories that would set in motion the argumentative debate on candidates with the aim to find out the facts about them. Media could report on the Property disclosure reports of the candidates, their educational and professional biographies, and marital and family background to explore whether there are any kinds of relations which would endanger the candidate’s impartiality. Moreover, media could offer the overview of key points from the media archive about their work. Candidates could be interviewed about the assessment of the previous work and motivation for their candidacies as well. Furthermore, Chief State Prosecutor should be obliged to present the results of candidates’ assessments which have been conducted within the controls since his appointment on the position of the Head of the State Prosecution. If such reports exist, they should be publicly available and maybe they would represent the most valuable insight into the candidates’ assessment.

Two NGOs have problematized the past of one of candidates (judge Katnić). It is the right of NGOs to do it when it comes to the biographies of the candidates for the important public duties, as well as the state bodies have the obligation to efficiently investigate such allegations, especially when the candidates have in their jurisdiction to investigate war crimes as well. However, only one statement of the alleged witness given 19 years after the alleged event happened is weak argument to deny the candidacy. Furthermore, if his candidacy is disputable due to aforementioned reason, it is also debatable whether he could be the judge at the Appellate Court, which also has the competency over war crimes cases. Moreover, the unintended consequence of this initiative could be indirect, and in no way deserved support to his competition. That’s why it is indeed in the public interest and in the interest of the candidate himself to investigate this issue efficiently and timely.

Chief State Prosecutor and Prosecution council are responsible to the public for the decisions on the appointments. That is why the public needs the information, in-depth and argumentative explanations which would convince us in the rightness of the decision, and which would unveil the doubt about the appointed prosecutors.

It is expected from the new Special Prosecution to professionally, courageously and proactively investigate the allegations of media, NGOs and international organizations related to the corruption acts in all sectors and all levels. We need prosecutors who will investigate the acts of all major political, economic families, all domestic tycoons and foreign investors, incumbent and former Ministers and Directors. We need someone who will proactively search for corruption schemes and criminal networks in public procurement, health services, education system, real estate, energy sector… and all other important places, institutions, sectors.

It seems that working better than in years behind us will not be a challenge at all. Only one person was reported for the criminal offense of passive bribery. The report was filed by a natural person and it was dismissed. Total of two persons were reported for active bribery. Seven persons were reported for the criminal offense of illegal influence, out of which 5 charges were dismissed, while the bill of indictment was filed against two. There wasn’t a single criminal charge of money laundering. Throughout the year only one new financial investigation was launched, in the case of “Košljun”.

After the cases “Šarić” and “Kalić” where the property was seized in 2011, case “Zavala” when the indictments were issued, case “CKB” for which the indictments were issued in the beginning of 2014, the Special Prosecution has started sleeping soundly. There were many “preliminary investigations” in the Special Prosecution and even 215 cases were formed in the last year in order to check indications or ground for suspicion. Out of that number 92 were dismissed, 104 forwarded to other units of Prosecution system. In the end, only one indictment was charged against 2 persons.

Comparative experience shows that establishing Special Prosecution does not guarantee quick and significant results. The path towards better, greater and more significant results in the fight against the organized crime and corruption depends on the number of internal and external factors, but for the first visible results we need time – something we lack the most.

Stevo MUK
President of the Managing Board

Text originally published in the ”Forum” of daily Vijesti