Defender of the state budget, but the last on the Government’s agenda: Forgotten Protector

In 2017, the Parliament, the Government and the Ministry of Finance should address better the legal regulation of the position of Protector of legal and property interests, the institution responsible for representing state interests.

In our policy brief “Public finances and the Accountability of the Administration: What does the Protector protect?”, produced with the financial assistance of the European union within the project Civil society for Good Governance: To Act and Account, pointed out to the key problems in legal status and work of the Protector of the property and legal interests of Montenegro.

Mentioned problems are reflected in the ambiguous position of this institution in the public administration system, flawed appointments of the Protector, deputies and their overload.

On annual level, protector and the deputies, as legal representatives of state administration and other legal entities founded by the state, had over 1.400 cases.

The institution of the Protector lacks in transparency. The Protector does not have own Internet presentation nor a Guide for free access to information. Available reports of the Protector are too sparse, and typically contain just a list of
 parties and the value of cases, without further details on the proceedings and the efficiency of the Protector.

There is no information on the way the dispute was conducted (in or outside of court). There is no record whatsoever of the opinions provided by the Protector to other public bodies, or any analysis of or further information about the most valuable cases. Beside, for two years, 2012 and 2013, the Government never even discussed the reports of the Protector, though it is legally bound to do so.

The current legal status of the Protector is not adequate considering it importance. For instance, its counterpart in other countries of former Yugoslavia is the state or public attorney.

The total amount paid to other parties based on the decision s
taken in 2014 and 2015 in the cases in which the Protector 
represented various bodies of the Montenegrin state was over
 14.5 million euro.

Again, this is only part of the money that is lost from the budget in the context of disputes in which the Protector represented state bodies. Government’s interest to improve the situation of these institutions, despite the declarative commitment to analyse its position, is actually inversely proportional to its importance. This is also reflected in the budget for 2017, given the fact that the financial resources Protector have been reduced by 20.000 euros, compared to the previous year, despite the recognized need for additional staff and improving the electronic records of the institution.

Milena Milošević

Public Policy Researcher

While expecting tangible results of the Public Administration Reform: Enhancing civil society monitoring

Six months after the start of implementation of Public Administration Reform Strategy, Institute Alternative, together with partners and representatives of the administration, has been working on improvement of the methodology for monitoring this reform, which is crucial for our progress in European integration, depolitization of the society and prevention of the public resources abuse.

Improved methodology for monitoring Public Administration Reform (PAR) Strategy is the outcome of the workshop organized by Institute Alternative on January 16-17th within the project “Civil society for Good Governance: To Act and Account!”. The project is implemented with Bonum, New Horizon, Natura and Center for Investigative Journalism and funded by the European union (EU).

Government has adopted PAR Strategy in July, but so far, only one activity has been implemented – adoption of the new Law on Administrative procedures. The workshop objective was to improve the guidelines for methodology which will be used by the CSOs for PAR Strategy monitoring, with focus on areas of great importance for citizens such as service delivery, participation in decision making and obtaining free access to information.

Representatives of Center for Civic Education, Association of Youth with Disabilities and Center for Development of NGOs have especially contributed to the workshop, as well as representatives of the Ministry of Interior and recently established Ministry of Public Adminsitration.

Beside monitoring of the PAR strategy, our project “Civil society for Good Governance: To Act and Account!” aims to enhance the capacity of NGOs and media in their research and advocacy activities in area of good governance.

We remind that the Public Administration reform, next to the Rule of law and Economic governance, represents main pillar in the Western Balkans EU accession process. Therefore, the overall pace of accession of Montenegro will be assessed in regard to its readiness to provide citizens with efficient, transparent and service-oriented public administration.

In December 2016, Institute Alternative has upgraded its special website “My Administration”, in order to enable citizens to report and share obstacles and problems met while exercising their rights before the public administration, but also to keep them informed about the country’s progress achieving specific goals in the context of the reform.

Institut Alternative team

Workshop was organised with the assistance of the EU within the project “Civil society for Good Governance: To Act and Account!” which is implemented by Institute Alternative, Bonum, New Horizon, Natura and Center for Investigative Journalism

Agency for Prevention of Corruption to provide information on public officials

For more than three months now, the Agency refuses to provide us with a list of all public officials in Montenegro and a list of public officials who gave consent to the Agency to check their bank accounts, as well as the copies of those consents. Also, the Agency has not provided us with a list of police officers who are obliged to submit assets declaration.

Institute alternative (IA) submitted freedom of information requests to the Agency for Prevention of Corruption in September and October 2016, requesting the list of all public officials in Montenegro, information on how many public officials there are in Montenegro there are and who of them gave consent to the Agency to check their bank accounts for the purpose of verification of the data from the their assets declaration. Also, we asked for the copies of those consents, with applying personal data protection rules – deleting personal identification number and the number of bank account of public official. Additionally, we wanted to be informed on the names of police officers obliged to submit assets declaration to the Agency and who among them fulfilled that obligation until the day of submitting our request.

After the Agency did not respond our request for more than a month, we submitted the complaints for administrative silence against it to the Agency for Personal Data Protection and Free Access to Information (AZLP).

Council of the Agency for Personal Data Protection and Free Access to Information adopted Decisions on December 10 and 28, confirming that the Agency for Prevention of Corruption has violated the Law on Free Access to Information and ordered it to adopt decisions upon our requests within the legal deadline of 15 days since the day of receiving the Decision of the Council.

In both cases, 15 – day deadline for issuing the decisions has expired, so it seems that the Agency remains persistent in its practice of non-transparency and irregularly and incompletely informing the public. Hereby we call upon the Agency to act upon the decision of the Council of the Agency for Personal Data Protection and Free Access to Information and provide us with requested information.

We remind that IA has been already pointing out the need of amending the Law on Free Access to Information on this matter. Namely, the Law does not stipulate the obligation for the state authorities to act upon the decisions of the Council of the Agency for Personal Data Protection and Free Access to Information nor any kind of sanction for such conduct. It is, therefore, necessary to promptly solve this legal loophole which enables authorities not to act upon the decisions of the Council on the appeal of the claimant.

Ana Đurnić
Public Policy Researcher