Posted on

Press Release: Conduct checks on the spot related to the Secret Surveillance Measures and request the data from the operators

Data on the Secret Surveillance Measures (SSM) published by judiciary must not remain an exception; and Parliament has to continue with systemic oversight of the implementation of these measures. It is necessary that the Committee on Defense and Security persistently conducts “on the spot” checks and request the data on wiretapping from operators.

Based on the proposal of Institute Alternative and on the request of the MP Snežana Jonica, the Supreme Court and the Chief State Prosecutor’s Office have delivered to the Parliament the data on the approved SSM and their results. Although this is the step forward in relation to the multi-year non-transparent implementation of the measures when only sporadic data on this sensitive issue were published, reporting on SSM must not remain the exception, but it has to become regular practice.

We are also reminding that the Committee on Defense and Security, which has the legal right to checks “on the spot” regarding the application of SSM, has conducted the check only once since the Law on Parliamentary Oversight was adopted in 2010. MPs have visited the Division for Special Checks within the Police Department in 2013, when they faced the impossibility to identify potential abuses since the necessary technical conditions weren’t met. In that sense, it wasn’t confirmed but neither rejected the doubts that the Editor-in-Chief and the journalist of daily “Dan” were illegally wiretapped. However, it is not known whether any steps forward were made since then in order to improve the state of affairs, nor have the MPs proposed formal initiative with the goal to fulfill the conditions which would enable the Committee to conducts the real oversight and to find out unambiguous facts, in the case if there exist the suspicion of abusing the measures.

In this regard, we urge the Committee not to give up its right to control but to develop mechanisms for monitoring, bearing in mind that the application of SSM violates constitutionally guaranteed rights. In addition, we believe that the Committee should request information on the scope of the applied measures immediately and providers of mobile and internet services, since the operators, in accordance with the Law on Electronic Communications shall, together with the competent state body upon whose request a lawful interception is conducted, shall be obliged to provide permanent records on this activity (Article 180, paragraph 3). In this way it can be determined whether there are differences between the measures approved by the courts and of the measures itself.

In addition, the data revealed by the judiciary can serve as a proof to the National Security Agency that there will be no harm to national security if they start to proactively publish the number of persons who are wiretapped. The NSA had a good practice and until 2008 has made these data available to the public, but since 2009, they consider that the aforementioned numeric data are “endangering the execution of tasks of the NSA.” Committee on Defense and Security also did not insist on its right to control the SSM applied by the NSA and since 2010 has not conducted any control in this matter in the premises of the National Security Agency.

More frequent control by the competent Committee and introduction of practice of requesting the data from the operators would not only increase the responsibility of both the Police and the NSA, but it would also contribute to ensuring that the citizens overcome the fear that the authorities are illegally listening to their telephone conversations or read their electronic messages.

Dina Bajramspahić
Public Policy Researcher

Posted on

Strengthening the impact of State Audit Institution – The mutual cooperation is necessary

We are still far from effective control of the budget and far from the impact of the State Audit Institution (SAI) we wish for, it was concluded at today’s conference organized by Institute alternative. In this mission, Parliament, Government, Prosecutor’s Office and other institutions must have more active role and they should use the SAI’s report in their work, in order to establish accountability for any misuse and in the fight against corruption, as well as in systemic problem existing in the public sector.

Year in, year out, the Government is implementing less than 30% recommendations related to the final budget account and it tolerates the auditees’ failure to submit information to Ministry of Finance about what they have done in order to implement the obligations from SAI recommendations and from the Action plan for its implementation.

Aleksandar Damjanović, the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Economy, Finance and Budget, has announced the establishing of sub-committee on control of public finances for this fall, as one of the examples of fulfillment the obligation from the Action plan for Strengthening Legislative and Control Role of the Parliament. Moreover, he announced that the protocol on cooperation between the Committee and the SAI will soon be signed, which will ensure better exchange of information, significantly more engagement in each audit reports and monitoring the fulfillment of the recommendations.

The Senate of SAI has announced that they will dedicate special attention to the development of the methodology for the monitoring and evaluation of the fulfillment of the recommendation by the auditees. Moreover, it has been announced that the SAI will work on strengthening the cooperation with State Prosecutor’s Office in order to determine the criminal liability related to the misuse of the budgetary funds which SAI encounters in its work.

One of the topics at the conference was what happens after the SAI reports are published, in terms of misuse and irregularities. It was concluded that it is unacceptable that the Prosecutor’s Office keeps ignoring audit reports and fails to carry out investigations on the basis of those reports, which SAI submits to them. In addition, misdemeanor charges, requests for compensation and clear definition of political accountability have to be an integral part of SAI’s work in the future if we want to stop practices that SAI has observed throughout the years.

The fact that the Parliament is allowing the Senate of SAI to work in an incomplete composition for almost five years has also been subjected to criticism.

The capacities of SAI were also discussed, because SAI works with only half of the planned number of state auditors, while the Ministry of Finance continues to approve new employments in the SAI.

The attitude of the Institute alternative is that it is unacceptable that the Parliament violates the Law on State Audit Institution by appointing the state auditor in the Council of the Agency for the prevention of corruption, who cannot be the member of any managing body of legal entities.

Institute Alternative has also announced that new website www.mojnovac.me will be launched soon and it will offer data which will show which auditees are fulfilling the SAI’s recommendations.

The policy debate “Strengthening the impact of the State Audit Institution in Montenegro” is the part of the project “Together towards accountability – strengthening the impact of the state audit in Montenegro”, supported by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade. The goal of the project is to increase the level of the implementation of SAI’s recommendations, as well as strengthening ties between the SAI and the Parliament of Montenegro, civil society organizations and internal auditors in the public sector.

Posted on

Reaction: The Government hides the data, while Marković hides the truth

It’s not true that there is no interest of NGOs for obtaining full information about the results of Montenegro in the field of the rule of law. On the opposite, our interest is continuously present, but the Government’s responses don’t exist, they are imprecise or secret.

That’s why we can claim that Duško Marković, the Vice president of the Government hasn’t told the truth during the TV show “Živa istina”, that aired on June 26th. While talking about alleged successes in the field of the Rule of law, stating certain data from the domain of the judiciary statistics, Marković replied to the journalist’ question claiming that NGOs don’t want to take those data and to deal with them.

On the contrary, Institute alternative has at least three reasons to claim that these statements are not true.

Firstly, the Peer Review reports made by EU experts for seven fields during current and last two years, have been classified with the designation of confidentiality, as claimed from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration in their official response delivered to us on June 16th. The Ministry has classified these reports with the designation “restricted”, but without giving any reason why they did so. The fields analyzed by the European Commission experts are rule of law, conflict of interest, money laundering and financing of terrorism, efficiency of judiciary and fight against corruption and organized crime.

Second of all, for two years in a row the Government doesn’t want to make European Commission’s opinions on some important law proposals and laws drafts, which are being adopted in the available to the public, NGOs, and not even to MPs. One of examples is the Commission’s opinion on the Proposal Law on the public procurement, which we have asked for multiple times through requests to the free access to the information, but without any success.

Finally, the members of the Working group for the Chapter 23 have very limited access to the information about realization of the measures from the Action plan for the aforementioned Chapter, as well as about the communication between the Government and the European Commission. Additionally, NGOs and all citizens are excluded from the Rule of Law Council’s sessions which are led by none other but Duško Marković.

Therefore, we invite the President of the Rule of Law Council to open the session of this governmental body to the public, and we invite the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration to make information, which are crucial for the fight against the corruption and organized crime, publicly available. Otherwise, we will legitimately keep asking the question: What is hiding in the document of the EU experts that made Government classify them as “restricted”.

Stevo MUK
President of the Managing Board

Here you can find the transcript of the statement of Duško Marković, Vice president of the Government, in TV show “Živa istina”, aired on June 26th.

Posted on

TRAIN Programme: Workshop in Berlin

Our researcher, Dina Bajramspahić, attended a workshop in Berlin last week (June 23rd -27th), within the TRAIN programme -Fostering policy dialogue in the Western Balkans.

The programme brings together 12 representatives of think tanks from the Western Balkans who attended workshops on the topics of communication and skills for advocating recommendations from research before the meeting in Brussels with the decisions makers at EU level.

Participants of the programme have, among other places, visited the German Bundestag, the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Federal Government and discussed topics of interest to the Western Balkans with experts and creators of the EU enlargement policy.

More about the program can be found here.

TRAIN program: Radionica u Berlinu

Related news:

Posted on

Public debate on Chapters 23 and 24

Jovana Marović, research coordinator, has participated in public debate which marked two years since the adoption of the Action plans for Chapters 23 and 24. The debate „Action plans for Chapter 23 and 24: Where do we stand after two year of implementation“ was organized by the Office of the Chief Negotiator on Accession of Montenegro to European Union, in cooperation with the Delegation of European Union and British Council.

Jovana pointed out that hitherto negotiation process within the Chapter 23 can be observed based on 4 criteria:

  • level of implementation of measures envisaged in Action plan
    provision of „measurable“ results
  • the level of transparency and the participationof interested parties in the process
  • participation of the civil sector in the working group and monitoring the measures

She added that, apart from completion of the normative framework, we are stagnating by all aforementioned criteria. By adapting the Action plans by the end of 2014, the deadlines for more than half measures related to the fight against the corruption have been postponed. Only 1/5 of measures from this part of Action plan have been completely realized, while the rule is that we lack measurable results within this field. There are not any final legally binding decisions for high-level corruption, and only one financial investigation has been started. Violations of law are not being sanctioned.

Regarding transparency, she pointed out, refusing to report quarterly on the negotiation process in Chapters 23 and 24, closing the Council for the Rule of Law’s sessions for public, refusing to publish European Commission’s opinion of Draft laws are examples which cannot serve as a good example for the quality and the transparency of the process.

Unique model of civil society direct participation within the Negotiation working groups is good. However, representatives from NGO sector in th working group are not equal with other members, since, among other things, they have selective access to information, she concluded.

Apart from Jovana, the speakers were:

  • Svetlana Rajković, Negotiator for Chapters 23 and 24
  • H.E. Mitja Drobnič, Head of Delegation of EU to Montenegro
  • Slaven Radunović, Chairman of the Committee on European integrations
  • Branka Lakočević, Head of the working group for the Chapter 23
  • Mira Cerović, Head of the working group for the Chapter 24
  • Vlado Dedović, Director of the Legal department at CeMI and the member of the working group for Chapter 24.
Posted on

Reaction: Still without the prerequisites for the fight against the corruption

The reaction of the members of the Working group for the Chapter 23 related to the appointment of the Council of the Agency for the prevention of corruption

In the capacity of members of the Working group for Chapter 23, we express our dissatisfaction with the appointment of the Council of Agency for the prevention of corruption, conducted in a manner which gravely violated the law and with an obvious intention of creating the conditions for continuous political control of the fight against the corruption in Montenegro. Both Government and Parliament proved that the fight against the corruption and establishment of independent institutions are still a bite too big for both for the government and the opposition.

By electing this composition of the Council of Agency for the prevention of corruption, the Commission for the proposal of candidates, then the Anticorruption Committee, and, finally the Parliament, have violated the Articles 41 and 45 of Law on State Audit Institution, which prescribe the prohibition on the membership of state auditors in managing bodies of legal entities, which was clearly pointed out in the press release of Institute alternative from July 24th.

We believe that there was enough room for a more detailed and more transparent evaluation of experiences in the fight against the corruption when it comes to other elected members. Special omission was made when other candidate from NGO sector was not elected to the Council, which is, next to the obvious intention of preventing the election of impartial members in the composition of this body, simultaneously the neglecting of all professional qualifications of a candidate and contributions in the fight against the corruption.

Members of the Parliament of Montenegro failed yet another test in providing the prerequisites for the non-selective fight against the corruption. Even though the Government created the model of election of members of the Council of Agency for the fight against the corruption with an obvious intention to directly control the work of this managing body, the Parliament provided the legitimacy to such intention with the election of the proposed composition of Council, in addition to legal and material violations during the procedure of proposal and appointment of its members. Therefore we fear that this composition of Council cannot take care of the task of directing the impartial fight against the corruption, especially in the part of the election of director who would meet the criteria of independence.

Given that past results in the fight against the corruption are rather limited, compromising the procedure of constituting the body of Agency for the prevention of corruption and further politicization of the process are clear indicators of future course of reform projects of state institutions. That course is definitely not going in the way of creating the conditions for an efficient fight against the corruption.

We urge the MPs of Montenegrin Parliament to closely monitor the process of election and appointment because this is not the first time that during those elections they vote contrary to laws which they adopted themselves in the very same Parliament.

Ana Novaković, Centre for the development of non-governmental organisations (CDNGOs)

Jovana Marović, Institute alternative (IA)

Boris Marić, Centre for Civic Education (CCE)