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IA proposes Measures for Enhancing the Work of the Internal Control of the Police

With the support of OSCE Mission to Montenegro, the Institute alternative has prepared an analysis „Internal Control of Police Comparative Models“ which aims at pointing out the possibilities for enhancing Montenegrin model of internal control through the study of three EU models.

Department of Internal Control of the Ministry of interior has made a step forward in terms of increasing public visibility and improving transparency of its work in 2014. Among other things, monthly reports of the work of the Department containing information on all requests for conducting internal controls, performed controls and their outcomes, are being published on the web-site of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. This is highly important in order for citizen to gain confidence in the work of Internal Control and to become encouraged to report all forms of violations of the law and ethics by the police officers.

However, the Department still does not have all the necessary legal and technical prerequisites to fully exercise its power.

Among other things, the Internal Control has been denied the right to propose application of SSM to the public prosecutor and the investigation judge, in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Code and statement of grounds of the request, even though the intention of the legislator was obviously to grant equal rights to the officers of Internal Control and to the police officers. Especially one should bear in mind the complexity of investigating abuse of official authority and unlawful conduct of police affairs carried out by the police officers, who possess knowledge on the manner of collecting and concealing evidence, and in addition, have professional and personal contacts with other police officers and can influence possible initiation of proceedings against them. Therefore, it is of utter most importance to correct this bad practice and to enable Internal Control to initiate application of SSM against police officers for which there is a reasonable doubt that they have committed a criminal offense. This could be achieved by adding a paragraph in the CPC which clarifies that the term „police“ applies to all authorized officers of Internal Control as well.

Another problem that we have recognized in their work is the lack of legal basis for the formal communication with the state prosecutors, which are in charge of directing and managing work of the police, in accordance with the new CPC. This allows for a situation where police officers refer to the orders of prosecutors for their actions and Internal Control has no possibility of verifying such statements. Therefore, it is necessary to amend the Law on Internal Affairs and authorize Internal Control to request information from the competent public prosecutor on the specific conduct of police officers in all stages of criminal proceedings.

The third problem refers to the need to protect communication between the Department of Internal Control and other state authorities. Since keeping the information on, for instance, Internal control requests for providing information a secret is not prescribed, there may be civil servants from other authorities (such as the Tax Administration, Property Administration, etc.) who will inform citizens and/or police officers that the Department of Internal Control requested information about them, which may interfere with the process of conducting controls. Therefore, it is necessery to amend to the Law on Internal Affairs so that it stipulates that the state authorities are required to keep secret requests for information submitted by the Department of Internal Control and to apply Data Secrecy Law and determine the „label of secrecy“ for documents relating to controls carried out by the Internal Control.

Bearing in mind the significance of parliamentary oversight of police work, it is necessary to establish a formal and regular cooperation between Internal Control and competent Security and Defense Committee by, among other things, amend to the Law on Internal Affairs so that it stipulates that the Department of Internal Control submits an annual report on their work to the Parliament.

This will contribute to the work of the Committee, but it will also strengthen integrity and professionalism of the Department by informing the body outside the Ministry on Internal Affairs on the results of their work.

Finally, it is necessary to improve administrative, human and technical capacities of the Internal Control, so it could be able to respond to the need for fighting corruption in the police and improving integrity of the police officers.

Dina Bajramspahić
Public Policy Researcher

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Press release: Government to Respond to the Warnings of State Auditors

Instead of ignoring the recommendations of the SAI, which was the practice by now, the Government should take them into consideration and respond to them, especially to those which warn on the issues in implementing the public procurement and the capital budget.

Institute Alternative hereby invites the Government to adopt the Action Plan for the implementations of the recommendations of SAI, which will be better that the previous one and which will represent the first step toward to solving problems pointed out so many times by the auditors.

The current statistics, according to which only one third of the recommendations from the previous report DRI were conducted, states that the more responsible approach is necessary in fixing the problems that state auditors warned against.

During his speech at the Committee on Economy, Finances and Budget, the Minister of Finance has stated that, in his opinion, the recommendations of the SAI have the same power as the law itself.

However, the results on implementation of the recommendations of the SAI so far are not encouraging at all, and they suggest that the different approach is needed.

According to the last year’s report on the revision on the final invoice (year 2012), only 30% of the recommendations have been implemented. The majority of those which have not been taken into consideration and implemented are the ones related to the public procurements and capital budget, both problems which require systematic response.

In the last published report on the revision of the final invoice, the SAI has given the positive opinion about the financial audit, stating however that there are still irregularities present, which seek to be revised. On the other hand, while talking on the compliance of the work state authorities with legal and other regulations, the SAI has once again given the conditional opinion with the number of recommendations which should be implemented by state authorities.

The recommendations are related to the unclear debits, exceeding of the legally defined limits of the budget spending, excessive use of own revenues, irregularities in the work of the Department of the Public Revenues as well as the irregularities in using the budgetary reserves.

The same problems related to the implementation of the capital budget, public procurements and the management of the state property are repeated all over again, which are the fields with the highest number of recommendations which have not yet being dealt with in the recent years.

Therefore, we appeal to the Government to adopt the annual Action Plan for the implementation of the recommendations of the SAI. Apart from new recommendations, the old ones from the previous year must not be forgotten and therefore, have to be integrated in this Action Plan.

Also, it is necessary that this document finally has the basic elements of the Action Plan which were missing in the previous: clear deadlines for implementation of the recommendations, defined actions to be taken based on the recommendations of the SAI, the indicators that will measure whether something is implemented properly as well as precisely defined the actor who are about to implement the part of the Action Plan.

Marko Sošić

Public Policy Researcher

We are currently conducting research on whether and how the state audit’s recommendations are implemented. This is a part of a project supported by the Royal Norwegian Embassy, entitled “Together towards accountability – strengthening the impact of the state audit in Montenegro”. Besides analysis of the implementation of SAI’s recommendations, its components are strengthening ties with between the SAI and the Parliament of Montenegro, civil society organizations and internal auditors in the public sector.

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Internal Control of Police Comparative Models

Professional, reliable and efficient police is of utmost importance for effective and comprehensive fight against corruption and organised crime, which also represents one of the key conditions to be met for further progress of Montenegro in its negotiations with the European Union in Chapter 23 on Judiciary and Fundamental Rights and in Chapter 24 on Justice, Freedom and Security. The Police Administration, as the largest part of Montenegro’s public administration staff-wise, with more than 5 300 employees, must pay special attention to the suppression of corruption within itself, in particular bearing in mind its competences when it comes to citizens and their constitutionally guaranteed rights. Besides the statements on widespread corruption in all social spheres, Montenegrin public discourse is often characterised by doubts on the existence of links between a certain number of police officials and organised crime groups, as a consequence of a lengthy transition process in Montenegro.

Although there are several levels of control of the work of police in Montenegro (parliamentary, civic, independent institutions’ control), in order to establish facts in complex cases such as the ones related to corruption or organised crime, a key role is played by the internal control of the police, inter alia, due to the fact that its officials have police powers, necessary for collecting evidence for such types of criminal offence.

The Action Plan for Chapter 23, adopted by the Government of Montenegro, identifies the need for a serious approach to this phenomenon, thus providing a set of measures related to strengthening of the internal control of the police. One of these measures is the ‘preparation of a functional analysis with an overview of the current state of play in the application of internal control mechanisms in the work of the police and other bodies.’ In that regard, the Ministry of Interior of Montenegro formed an interagency working group to work on the analysis and in line with the Decree on cooperation between the government and non-governmental organisations, it publicly called all interested NGOs to contribute to the work of the working group. That is how a representative of Institute Alternative (IA) became a member of this Working Group.

The research conducted by Institute Alternative in this area, as well as the preparation of this comparative analysis which aims at pointing out to the possibilities for enhancing the Montenegrin model of internal control through the study of three EU models, was supported by the OSCE Mission to Montenegro. The models selected for this analysis are almost entirely different and each of them has a special feature which distinguishes them in this area. Models were not chosen on the basis of similarities and differences vis-à-vis the Montenegrin model (number of inhabitants, number of police officials, judicial system, etc.); instead, the goal of the author was to ‘study’ the modus operandi of the internal control system in these countries at the level of principles.

By providing recommendations for enhancing the modus operandi of our internal control of the police, our goal is to contribute to the transformation of Montenegrin Police into a professional police service trusted and respected by its citizens.

This comparative study provides a detailed overview of control mechanisms (modus operandi) and instruments for efficient identification and prevention of abuse, as well as the analysis of challenges and possibilities for enhancing the modus operandi of the internal control of the police. On that basis and on the basis of the analysis of comparative cases (models from three EU member states), IA formulated its concrete recommendations for the reform of the Montenegrin model.

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Professionalisation of Senior Civil Service in Montenegro: Between State and Politics

Montenegro has only formally set the boundary between professional functions and political appointments in state administration. Even though the room for political influence on senior management staff and heads of authorities has been reduced with the new Law on Civil Servants and State Employees, the legal framework is still plagued by inconsistencies and imprecise norms that have an adverse effect on the overall efforts towards professionalising the state administration.

According to the existing regulation, senior civil servants do not need to be experts or specialists in the areas they cover. On average, they are mostly required to have an undergraduate degree in social sciences and at least three years of working experience in managerial positions or positions requiring autonomy. The awareness of the need for their further professional development is low, which results in their very low participation in trainings offered by the Human Resources Management Authority.

The legal framework is ridden with shortcomings when it comes to regulating the status of senior civil servants, such as insufficient provisions relating to the conditions for their dismissal and the absence of the requirement of their work’s appraisal. Appraisal of the senior managers’ performance is superficial, and it neglects specific benchmarks existing for their performance appraisal. The rigid wage policy for state management staff leaves little room for flexibility and additional stimuli, a consequence of which is that relatively low salaries are being supplemented through additional remuneration for membership in various working bodies and state enterprises’ managing boards. The average monthly income of most senior civil servants is around EUR 1.000.

Another reason for concern is that the nominally professional nature of the senior civil service is in reality subject to direct political influence through informal practices. A considerable number of senior civil servants, at least 90 of them, are simultaneously members of organs of political parties currently in power, which indicates that Montenegro’s senior civil service is in a conflicting situation of being torn between political priorities of the ruling parties, on the one hand, and the reform priorities, on the other hand. Consequently, the need for further prevention of political influence on this level of state administration is all the greater. An adoption of a special framework of competencies for senior civil servants, which in effect would contain a list of all the necessary skills they must possess, would be a good starting point for further professionalisation of these positions. Legal amendments should also thwart this cadre from participating in managing or advisory bodies of all political parties, and should define very precisely their rights and obligations in cases of deciding to run in elections.

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Joint press release: Limit the Competencies of the National Security Agency

For the purpose of preventing violation of human rights by security structures, non-governmental organisations Human Rights Action, Centre for Civic Education (CCE), Network for the Affirmation of Non-governmental sector (MANS) and Institute Alternative have submitted seven amendments for the improvement of legal framework for the NSA work to the MPs.

In addition to what we pointed out during past few days, which is that the authorities of NSA officials should be limited regarding the direct insight into database of legal persons and to pinpointing electronically location and implement these measures strictly based on the court decision, amendments to the changes of the Law on NSA should be more thoroughly standardised and other aspects of work of this institution and the protection of rights of citizens should be further improved.

Namely, it is necessary to prescribe by the law the procedures for destroying of information which the NSA collects and which are not of security character, because permanent storage of personal information in classified files would represent violation of rights regarding the respect of private life.

Hence, the law must prescribe ban on storage of “collaterally” collected information, or of the information that are not related to purpose for which these were collected. Also, the NSA should commit itself to submitting the information collected to Supreme court, after implementing secret surveillance measures, for the evaluation of legality of implemented measures. That implies that right after the “reading of judge” a part of material that is not related to reasons for which the measures were undertaken, or that relate to a different kind of personal data that are not of security character, should be destroyed while the rest of the material would be kept in registers.

We also prepared the amendment related to the obligation of the NSA to inform the citizens after the case is closed, without their previous written demand, on the measures that were conducted against them, in accordance with their Constitutional right.

Having in mind the insufficient results regarding the internal control over the work of the NSA, direct link should be established between competent parliamentary committee for security and defence and the general inspector in charge for the internal control over the work of this body. We remind that, former results of work of general inspector are exceptionally modest. By 2012, he had not determined any unlawful application of secret surveillance measures, or any other form of misuse. Also, even though obliged to, he did not submit reports on the performed control neither to Government nor to the director of the NSA. Thereby, the Law on NSA should prescribe the obligation of submitting the annual report on the work of Internal control to the Committee. Thus, the pressure of Parliament on internal control would be increased, in order for it to continuously perform control and help processing officials that have exceeded their authorities and violated the law.

For the same purpose, it is important to delete the provision of Law on NSA that, contrary to the Law on parliamentary oversight, limits individual right of members of the Committee for security and defence to request data and information from the NSA.

Having in mind the aforementioned problematic provisions of existing law, necessity of reforms of security sector, and lack of thrust of citizens in the work of NSA, we call upon MPs to submit amendments on the changes of the Law on NSA, that are currently being processed in Parliament, in accordance with our proposals.

***

Furthermore, today MANS submitted the proposal of the amendment to all parliamentary clubs, that was supported by 22 NGOs, based on which the provision of Draft of law on the amendments of the Law on NSA is amended, under which was envisaged for by an employee of the NSA who present official identification to access all registers and databases, which are in possession of all legal persons in Montenegro. It was proposed with the amendment to prescribe for this measure to be applicable only and solely based on the approval of the Supreme court president and only when national security is jeopardised by clearly listed circumstances.

Provision, which amendment we demand, envisaged that employees of the NSA who present official identification could perform direct insight in all registers and databases that are in possession of all legal persons, without any warrants, whereby subjects of surveillance do not have any right of complaint or court protection against such demand from NSA employee. Hence, the provision from the proposal of Law, which deletion is being proposed by the aforementioned amendment, is contrary to the Constitution and laws of Montenegro, as well as to the case law of the European court of Human Rights, and all relevant international conventions that Montenegro ratified.

Thus, we call upon all parliamentary clubs to sign the amendment and submit it into parliamentary procedure and to adopt it at the plenary session, thus to stop the violation of the Constitution and laws of Montenegro, as well as of international legal acts we ratified by now, with joint parliamentary action.

Signatories of the amendment proposals:

1. Human rights action (HRA), Tea Gorjanc-Prelević

2. Anima – Centre for women and peace education, Ljupka Kovačević

3. Centre for civic education (CCE), Daliborka Uljarević

4. Centre for monitoring and research (CEMI), Zlatako Vujović

5. Women’s right centre, Maja Raičević

6. EQVISTA, Milan Šaranović

7. Green Home, Nataša Kovačević

8. Institute Alternative, Stevo Muk

9. Juventas, Ivana Vujović

10. Queer Montenegro, Danijel Kalezić

11. League of women voters in Montenegro, Mira Asović

12. Network for the affirmation of non-governmental sector, Vanja Ćalović

13. NGO Heart, Dušan Rakočević

14. NGO Young Roma, Samir Jaha

15. NGO Prima, Aida Perović-Ivanović

16. Shelter, Ljiljana Raičević

17. SOS Hotline for women and children victims of violence, Biljana Zeković

18. Association of Youth with Disabilities of Montenegro (AYDM), Marina Vujačić

19. Association of Youth with Disabilities Nikšić, Jelena Čvorović

20. Association of paraplegics Bijelo Polje and Mojkovac, Milka Stojanović

21. Association of old crafts and skills “Nit”, Smiljana Radusinović

22. Association for the development of civil society from Bijelo Polje, Mirsala Tomić

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BiEPAG meeting in Graz

Detalj sa sastanka u Gracu

Research Coordinator in Institute Alternative, Jovana Marović, has participated in the introductory meeting of BiEPAG network (Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group) in the end of January, held in Graz. The initiative is being realized in the organization and with the support of European Fund for Balkans (EFB) and The Centre for Southeast European Studies from Graz. In the next period, network members are going to work on producing the analysis on key topics for the democratization process in the Western Balkan countries.

Apart from Jovana, the meeting was attended by:

  • Milica Delević, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD),
  • Corina Stratulat, European Policy Center (EPC),
  • Natasha Wunch i Theresia Toglhofer, German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP),
  • Vedran Džihić, University of Vienna,
  • Nikolaos Tzifakis, University of Peloponnisos,
  • Mirna Vlašić Feketija, Croatian Ministry of Foreing Affairs,
  • Marika Djolai, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton
  • Dane Taleski, Central European Unversity
  • Dimitar Bechev, London School of Economics and Political Science
  • Leon Malazogu, Democracy for Development Institute (D4D),

as well as the representatives of the organizers: Hedvig Morvai, Igor Bandović, Florian Bieber and Marko Kmezić.