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Protector’s non-allowed revisions – Salvation or additional damage for the state budget?

Despite warnings that the delay of court proceedings multiplies the costs that state is paying for its mistakes, Protector of Property and Legal interests files even non-allowed revisions before the Supreme Court.

From a total of 94 revisions that the Protector has filed, almost half of them – 43 have been were rejected as unfounded, while 11 revisions have been dismissed as non-allowed.

Institute Alternative has concluded this by searching judicial decision on revisions filed by Protector in the capacity of defendant, on behalf of the state, which have been published at the Supreme Court website.

We remind that the revision is an extraordinary legal remedy that can be filed against the final judgment brought by second-instance court. Law on Civil Procedures, which regulates revisions, states that revision is not allowed in property disputes if the value of the object in dispute as stated in the claim submitted by the plaintiff does not exceed the amount of 10.000 Euro. Despite this clear legal norm, this institution has filed 11 such revisions.

A total of 28 revisions were adopted, which equals to 35%. Out of that number, 15 cases have been remanded to the first instance court, while in the other 13 cases the lower court decisions have been overruled.

Institute Alternative has researched this sample with efforts to further clarify the functioning of the Protector, which is extremely important due to the already diagnosed low accountability of public administration and high costs which citizens have to pay for it.

The latest report of the Protector of Property and Legal Interests, however, does not provide real insight into the effectiveness of this institution: its largest part is consisted out of tabular presentation of disputes, without further explanation. In addition, the annual reports for 2012 and 2013 were not submitted to the Government, which not only constitutes a violation of the legal obligation of reporting and serious objection to transparency, but it makes the comparison of institution’s effectiveness by years almost impossible.

We remind that the recent State Audit Institution report has shown that in the period from 2012 – 2015 over 70 million have been paid for the cost of execution of court decisions against the state and its institutions, out of which 30.25% was spent on litigation costs, 11.20% on the default interest and 4.76% for the execution of court decisions.

Institute Alternative will, together with partner NGOs Center for Investigative Journalism, Bonum, Natura and New Horizon, within the project „Civil Society for Good Governance: To Act and Account!“ which is supported by EU, dedicate special attention to the issue of accountability in public administration.

Aleksandra VAVIĆ
Public Policy Researcher

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IA participated at the final regional Policy Forum within the SELDI project

Milena Milošević, our public policy researcher, participated at the regional Policy Forum on countering corruption, organised by SELDI Network in Skopje on 29-30 September.

Milena spoke at the panel discussion Building Institutional Competencies and Enhancing the Efficiency of the Administration.

“Montenegro might have made a greater progress in negotiation process with European Union, compared to other Western Balkan countries, but the story about the competences and efficiency of our public administration is not a story of a particular success”, she said, reminding of a high expenses that are being paid from the state budget for the mistakes of state authorities.

She recalled the earlier IA’s recommendations on the importance of adopting specific competency framework and improvement of measuring performance of employees in state administration.

“Nevertheless, I have to admit that these requirements, although necessary, seem to be too demanding in Montenegrin context, since we are still coping with the most basic challenges of professionalisation and depoliticisation of public administration”, added Milena, emphasising that recently we have noted two cases of MPs who kept their civil servants positions.

“This violation of separation of powers illustrates how Montenegrin state have been seized by the same party since 1989».

At the conference, participants pointed out that the key obstacles to more efficient combating corruption in the region are non-transparent financing of political parties, assets declaration and seizure of property, conflict of interest, difficulties in determining accountability of legal entities, lack of independence and proactivity of institutions, excessive formalism in legislative activities and interpretation of the laws and ineffective “soft”, preventive mechanisms for combating corruption.

Milena reminded attendees that Montenegro has the youngest Anti-corruption Agency in the region, which started to work in January this year.

“Earlier this year, we published a policy paper entitled Happy New Agency, and that’s more or less what we have so far: another supposedly independent institution that lacks proactive approach in verifying assets declaration, improving the transparency of political parties and determining conflict of interest”.

SELDI (Southeast Europe Leadership for Development and Integrity) is an anti-corruption and good governance coalition created in November 2012 by 17 likeminded CSOs from nine Southeast Europe countries.

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Six years of prosecutorial investigation in Montenegro

Take a look at some of the interesting facts from our new research report Six years of prosecutorial investigation in Montenegro — Cooperation of Police and Prosecution:

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Press release: Stop the non-transparent work of public companies

Institute Alternative (IA) has been unsuccessful for a year now in gaining insight into the business of state enterprises

Last May IA has requested from 35 registered state enterprises in Montenegro, via free access to information, to access their annual reports for 2014, minutes of meetings of the Board of Directors in the same year, the amount of average earnings, as well as the number of employees on the day 12/31/2014.
To this date, IA was able to gain insight to work reports for 2014 by 15 companies, while the rest has not been delivered still due to their absence, confidentiality, or because the reports are unfinished.

State enterprises that did not deliver their reports on annual work and those which do not respect the Law on free access to information are “Budva Riviera“, “Coastal Zone Management of Montenegro“, “Montenegro Airlines“, “Montenegrin Transmission System“, “National parks of Montenegro“, “Airports of Montenegro“, “Fruit and Vegetables of Montenegro“, Port Bar, “Transoceanic navigation“, “Bar navigation“, “Postal office of Montenegro“, “Montenegro bonus Cetinje“, “Project-Consulting Podgorica“, “Institute of Ferrous Metallurgy“, “Broadcasting centre“ Podgorica.

Having in mind the initiative of the Agency for protection of personal data and free access to information in initiating court proceedings against company Hotel Group “Budva Riviera”, which we support, we invite the Agency, but also the Government, to pressure this and other public companies, to start fulfilling their legal obligations arising from the Law on free access to information.

“Budva Riviera” refuses to deliver information to Institute Alternative relating to its business, as it interprets that it is not subject to the Law on Free Access to Information, although the majority ownership of the company lays in the hands of the Government of Montenegro.

In June 2015, after the request was rejected, IA has appealed to the Agency for protection of personal data and free access to information, taking into account the data of the Central Depository Agency, according to which 41.63% of the shares in “Budva Riviera” belong to the Government, while 12, 82% is held by the Pension Fund, and 4.27% Employment Agency. According to this data, the state, therefore, has a 58.72% ownership in “Budva Riviera”, which makes this company the state authority, subjected to the Law on Free Access to Information.

The Agency’s capacity to initiate infringement procedures must be improved, and its actions must be proactive for the sake of greater transparency of government, as well as more rapid sanctions to these violations of the Law. We particularly stress this issue, due to the fact that even after a year the Agency has not delivered its decision to our complaint.

Ivana Bogojević
Public policy researcher