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Citizens without the possibility to report the violation of the Code of Ethics for MPs

Why the citizens are not able to report violations of the Code of Ethics for MPs, are the sanctions for violation of ethical standards sufficiently stringent and is the control of their application sufficiently effective – those were some of the key issues discussed at today’s panel discussion organized by the Institute alternative (IA).

Panel discussion “The Ethics of MPs: From the standard to the practice” was organized with the support of Open Society Foundation – Think Tank Fund from Budapest, with the aim to offer critical review of the content and application of the Code of Ethics for MPs, whose adoption was foreseen by the Action Plan for Chapter 23 – Judiciary and Fundamental rights

Our panelists were the representative of all MP groups in the Parliament, who agreed that the Montenegrin parliament is leading among the parliaments in the region when talking about mutual conduct and behavior of MPs.

One of the questions raised by the participants was the practical impossibility for citizens to report the violation of the Code, since this right is reserved solely for the Speaker of the Parliament, the Collegium, MPs and the President of the MP group.

Halil Duković, representative of the MP group of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) and the Chairman of the Committee for Human Rights and Freedoms, a permanent working body in the Parliament, which is responsible for monitoring the application of the Code, said that so far no reports have been filed for the violation of the Code.

Ljiljana Đurašković, from the MP group of the Democratic Front, said that she was honored to be a member of the working group for drafting the Code, bearing in mind the importance of this document for raising ethical standards in the Parliament.

Responding to a question by Jovana Marović, research coordinator at the Institute alternative, posed at the very beginning of the discussion, Aleksandar Damjanović, the representative of the MP group of the Socialist People’s Party, said that he thought that the fines against MPs for violating ethical standards do not make any sense.

“Who can be competent to determine whether something could be assessed as the hate speech?”, asked Damjanović, emphasizing that there is not need to establish a special comittee which would monitor the compliance with the Code, since there are already too many members of the committee in total (over 180) having in mind that there are 81 seats in the Parliament.

Borislav Banović from the MP group of the Social Democratic Party said that he is not sure to what extent the Code would contribute to the appliance of the ethical standards, but it is still important to have it as a reminder for the adequate conduct of the MPs.

Since one of the topics was the responsibility for lack of work of MPs, i.e, for their absence from the plenary and committee meetings, Goran Tuponja, from the Positive Montenegro Party said that the lack of participation in the meeting may be considered as the political act.

“What is of a great importance is that the MP must not be in the conflict of interest or subjected to the corruption.”, he added.

Andrija Popović from the Liberal Party, has criticized the confusion in Montenegrin legal system and practice when it comes to the position of the MP.

“The Constitution gives the definition of the position of the MP in one way, the Law in another, and the practice in a third way”, he said while adding that he advocated introducing more severe sanctions which would be financial and humanitarian.

Namely, the amount of the fine paid by the MP who violated the Code should be donated to humanitarian purposes.

Mladen Bojanić, representing the MP group of independent MPs and Almer Kalač from the Bosniak party agreed with the most of their colleagues that fines are not the best solution, and that the moral condemnation, in that sense, is way more effective.

Jovana Marović, commenting on the panelists and participants in the discussion, said that IA supports the initiative to keep detailed records about contribution of MPs to parliamentary work, especially when it comes to presence to the plenary and committee meetings, since the absence of MPs from the meetings is considered to be a minor violation of the Code.

“That will also be one of the recommendations in the monitoring report on the control function of the Parliament, which IA is going to publish by the end of month”, she said.

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“Moja uprava” (“My administration”) – for more transparent recruitment in the state organs

Institute Alternative (IA) will launch a new website by the end of the month, which will facilitate the process of reporting problems as well as sharing experiences acquired during application process for a job in state administration.

Website mojauprava.me will be launched within the project ”State Administration in Montenegro – Equal for All”, financially supported by the U.S. Embassy in Podgorica.

In addition to the interactive component that will allow citizens to report problems when it comes to employment in state administration, this website will contain a graphical presentation of the key steps in the application and verification capabilities for a specific job, as well as mechanisms to protect the rights of candidates for jobs in government authorities.

Its launch is part of the efforts of the Institute Alternative to contribute to transparent and consistent application of the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees, which started from 1 January 2013, and whose main aim was to establish a system of recruitment and promotion in state administration based on merit.

IA prepares an annual monitoring report, which will provide a summary of the key issues and challenges in the second year of implementation of the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees, especially when it comes to methods of promotion and appointment to positions in the state administration.

Extremely broad interpretation of elders’ discretion right when it comes to selection of candidates to jobs, the practical impossibility of promotion of civil servants and employees, frequent formal omissions in the field of human resources management, according to the IA, are among the key obstacles to the professionalization of the Montenegrin state administration. At the same time, they are also the main factors limiting the scope of the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees, which imposes the necessity of redefining certain legal solutions.

Milena Milošević
Public Policy Researcher

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Panel discussion announcement “The Ethics of the MPs: From the standard to the practice”

Institute Alternative, supported by the Open Society foundation – Think Tank Fund, organizes panel discussion “The Ethics of the MPs: From the standard to the practice” in PR Center, on Friday, April 17th, starting from 11h.

The panelists will be:

  • Dr Halil Duković, the President of the Committee on Human rights and Freedoms, MP Group of Democratic Party of Socialists
  • Ljiljana Đurašković, MP Group of Democratic Front
  • Aleksandar Damjanović, the President of the Committee on Economy, Finance and Budget, MP Group of Socialist People’s Party
  • Borislav Banović, MP Group of Social Democratic Party
  • Goran Tuponja, MP Group of Positive Montenegro
  • Andrija Popović, Group of Albanian parties (FORCA, AA), HGI and LPCG
  • Branka Tanasijević, MP Group of Democratic Party of Socialists
  • Mladen Bojanić, Group of Independent MPs
    The representative of the Group of Bosniak Party

The moderator of the discussion will be Jovana Marović, research coordinator at the Institute Alternative.

The panel discussion is the part of the project „Analytical Monitoring of the Oversight Function of the Montenegrin Parliament“ conducted by Institute Alternative and supported by Open Society Foundation – Think Thank Fund from Budapest

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Press Release: We Proposed Measures for the Open Government Action Plan

At the moment, there is ongoing work on the preparation of the second Action Plan of Montenegro within the global initiative Open Government Partnership. The working group in charge of preparation of this document is actively considering the large number of ideas submitted by members of the working group, consisted of the representatives of the Government and NGOs. Institute alternative is one of, currently, four NGOs which are part of this team. Three others are CCE (Center for Civic Education), CDT (Center for Democratic Transition) and MANS (Network for Affirmation of NGO Sector).

IA has submitted ten key recommendations with the aim of reforms in the field of increasing public integrity, efficient management of the public resources and responsible Government work.

When it comes to transparency of public finances, we have recommended the establishing of the public register containing all projects financed from the capital budget of Montenegro. It would contain the data on invested resources and current stage of the project. We have proposed that each project was presented with its full documentation and simplified description, the amount of resources invested for each year and the current stage of realization of the project. The register would be public, easy to use, search and retrieve data.

Bearing in mind that significant resources of citizens are being spent through public procurement procedures, we have proposed an urgent improvement of the situation on the Public Procurement website. In order to improve transparency, the amendments to the Law on Public Procurement are urgently needed:

  • obligation to publish reports on the public procurement portal and standardized form (in any of the formats that are machine-readable – CSV, XML, JSON and Excel) filled by the purchaser to disclose information on public procurement portal;
  • the obligation of uniformed way of naming the documents in order to have the automatic classification with the aim of giving access of data to the interested parties
  • introduce the visual classification of data by the type o documents and automatic data processing from the Public procurement reports – A, B and C forms
  • the obligation of publishing direct agreements

We have also suggested the improvement of the implementation of the Data Secrecy Law. We believe that it is necessary that the Directorate for Protection of Classified Information prepares a report on the implementation of the Data Secrecy Act in the last 3 years, which would include an analysis of the implementation of all the provisions, in particular the following information:

  • list of data whose secrecy has expired, within the legally prescribed time limit (with a brief description)
  • the list of the state bodies which established the commission to periodically review the confidentiality of the data with the number of data whose confidentiality is considered,
  • the number of information with reduced level of confidentiality
  • list of data (information or document with brief description), from which the designation of confidentiality is removed
  • information on the implementation of penal provisions, particularly the list of legal entities convicted on the basis of each point of Article 82 (individually).

It is also necessary that all state bodies have the special section on their websites publishing of data, information, documents, from which the designation of secrecy has been removed or has expired within the legally specified period, as well as the decision on the establishing of the commission to periodically review as well as short information about their work and results.

One of our proposals relates to the improvement of the work of the Ethics Committee to monitor the application of the Code of Ethics of state employees. It is necessary to introduce the amendments to the Code of Ethics to proscribe an obligation to publish a public call for all officers, employees and representatives of civil society organizations to apply for membership of the Ethics Committee. The procedures for the election of members of the Board should be made on the basis of consultations between the heads of state bodies, taking into account the professional and working quality of the applicants when talking about civil servants and employees, and with respect to the expertise of civil society organizations. It is also important to establish the site of the Ethics Committee which would publish all the relevant information about its work, and also provide the citizens with the opportunity to submit complaints online.

In order to improve the implementation of public policies in the field of public administration reform, it is necessary to include representatives of NGOs in working bodies for the public administration reform, as well in monitoring of implementation of the Public Sector Internal Reorganisation Plan and local government reform.

When it comes to improving the transparency of the Government’s work, our proposal is to provide a live stream broadcast sessions on the Government website. Also, it is needed amend the Decision on publishing materials from Government sessions in order to modify the practice of publishing drafts, not only the adopted version of documents. We have also suggested introducing the practice of publishing the minutes of the session of the Government, or at least parts related to expert discussions and decision making of systemic solutions; and reconsider the need for the adoption of the Law on the Government.

We have proposed measures for improving keeping track of statistics in the field of criminal law and judiciary: to form a working group which will consist of representatives of the Police, the State Prosecutor’s Office, Supreme Court, Ministry of Justice, etc., which will prepare the analysis of the current situation and differences in the statistical reports of the Police, the Prosecution Office and of the Courts, and to propose measures for the gradual harmonization of statistics, with a deadlines for the implementation of the conclusions and recommendations.

Finally, it is necessary to amend the Law on Public procurement in way that it will proscribe, apart from the obligation of the publishing the direct agreements:

  • publishing the amount of collected funds and financial repayment plans on a quarterly basis;
  • delivering the monitoring reports on the implementation of contracts of public-private partnerships and concessions on a quarterly basis to the competent authority for updating the register (with information on delays, termination of contract and other relevant information for the realization of the contract);
  • include the information from the previous register on concessions in the newly established one;
  • delivering all data in any of the formats that are machine-readable.

Dina Bajramspahić

Public policy researcher and representative of IA in the OGP Operational Team

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Personal Responsibility for Human Rights Violation to be Determined

The joint letter addressed to Ivica Stanković, the Chief State Prosecutor, was sent by 9 NGOs, including ours, appealing to determine personal responsibility of the police officers and officials from the Prosecutor’s office who violated the human right to privacy of the employees of NGO MANS.

The occasion was the final verdict of the Basic Court in Podgorica, which found that the employees of the Police and Prosecution, have abuse the authority and violated the several laws and several provisions of the Constitution of Montenegro and therefore, violated the civil rights of employees in MANS with unlawful interrogations, illegal surveillance of electronic communication and disclosure of IP addresses from which the video recording of the weddings of Safet Kalic, the narcotrafficker was posted, although criminal proceedings were never initiated against any of the employees in MANS in this regard.

We have requested from the Chief State Prosecutor to, without any delay, determine the personal responsibility of all individuals who have committed these unlawful acts, those who have ordered them and those who have not sanctioned aforementioned individuals although they had to be aware of these acts.

Our joint letter in its entirety can be found here.

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Call for Papers: Improving Performance of Public Administration – Current Experiences and Future Perspectives

Interested researchers and practitioners are invited to submit papers for presentation at the conference Improving Performance of Public Administration: Current Experiences and Future Perspectives to be held in Belgrade, Serbia 9-10 September 2015. The Conference is organised by the Think for Europe Network (comprising the European Policy Centre, Belgrade, European Policy Institute, Skopje and Institute Alternative, Podgorica).

Conference Themes

The conference addresses the experiences and future perspectives in improving performance in the public administration in the European context. Suggested guiding topics for papers include:

  • Evidence-Based Policy Making as a Precondition for Performance of PA
    Using evidence in policy formulation, policy monitoring and evaluation, result based approaches in policy making, evaluation as a tool for organisational learning, etc.
  • Public Administration, Performance and Accountability
    Performance measurement and budgeting, linking performance with accountability, managerial accountability, ’Europeanisation’ of public administration in the context of PA performance, etc.
  • Performance Audit and Policy Evaluation
    Effectiveness of government spending and/or policies, impact of performance audit on policy cycle, correlations/links between performance audit and policy evaluation, etc.

We especially welcome submissions dealing with processes of performance audit and policy evaluation as important pillars of public administration and policy making reform in the context of the EU integration. The conference will include practical, empirical as well as theoretical approaches to these topics in order to bridge policy and academia worlds and incite peer learning. While we are foremost interested in contributions in relation to the Western Balkans, we encourage submissions dealing with the EU member states as well.

Eligible Candidates

Researchers working on performance in the public administration, including various aspects of the policy cycle

Practitioners dealing with policy making and evaluation, as well as performance audit in the European context

Scholars and PhD candidates active in the fields of public administration, public management and related fields

The selected candidates will be able to share and discuss their work in practitioner/researcher panels. The Conference is being organised within the project Performance Audit and Policy Evaluation: On the Same or Parallel Tracks supported by the Regional Research Promotion Programme in the Western Balkans (RRPP).

Submission

All interested candidates should submit a single file containing a short Curriculum Vitae (max. 2 pages) and an abstract of the proposed conference paper (max. 500 words) by 30 April 2015 at the latest, using online application form on the official conference website (see Guidelines for Registration and Applying).

NB: Receipt of abstracts will be confirmed via email, in case there is no confirmation within 24 hours from sending your application, please contact us back at conference.ten@europeanpolicy.org.

Selection Process

The selection process for abstracts will be completed by 15 May 2015. After initial approval of abstracts, selected candidates will be invited to submit a full research paper (up to 6000 words) by 15 July 2015. Please note that the submitted papers will be peer-reviewed and potentially invited for publication in a joint volume. If invited for publication, the final versions of the papers will need to be submitted by 31st August 2015.

Costs

Costs of accommodation in Belgrade and travel costs will be covered for up to 15 participants, based on available funding.

Programme and Practical Information

Participants will be informed about the programme and specific panels of the conference as well as all relevant practical information in due course.

The conference website will be updated on regular basis.

The organisers reserve the right to limit the number of applicants accepted to participate at the conference.

We are looking forward to your proposals! Should you have any further questions, do not hesitate to contact conference.ten@europeanpolicy.org.

About Regional Research Promotion Programme (RRPP)

The RRPP is aimed at fostering and promoting social science research in the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia). Social science research aids in the understanding of the specific needs for reform and in identifying the long-term implications of potential policy choices. Researchers receive support through research grants, methodological and thematic trainings, as well as opportunities for regional and international exchange and networking. The RRPP is coordinated and operated by the Interfaculty Institute for Central and Eastern Europe (IICEE) at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). The programme is fully funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.