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EC Report for Montenegro in Regard to Civil Sector: Formal Conditions Partially Met, No Genuine Consultation

European Commission Report for Montenegro, in the part relating to civil society, confirmed that formal conditions for cooperation between government and NGOs have been met, but that besides formal participation of NGOs in working bodies, conditions should be created for their genuine consultation.

We believe that the document lacks some key findings which marked the year behind us; first of all, increasingly intensive campaigns against critically oriented NGOs and direct undermining of their freedom of expression, as well as unprecedented illegal acting of the Parliament of Montenegro which rendered meaningless the existing procedures for election of NGO representatives to advisory bodies.
In short, EC confirmed what we have been saying for several years – the Government is establishing formal conditions for work and acting of NGOs, but these laws, decrees and strategies are continuously not implemented in the prescribed manner.

The need to ensure genuine participation of NGOs in working groups and negotiation process is reiterated three times, by which EC is assessing the quality of this process, not merely the quantity. This approach is encouraging, since it sends a clear message to the Government, if it wishes to read it correctly, that laws, strategies, decrees and advisory bodies should be implemented and functional. Otherwise, mere listing of these mechanisms cannot make Brussels believe that cooperation with NGOs is truly established.

We remind of the most recent example in this regard – passing of Strategy for Enhancing Conducive Environment for Activities of the Non-Governmental Organizations 2018-2020. NGOs did not participate in its and it does not contain any substantive measures in this area. Of all comments received from NGOs, the Government included one in the Strategy, partially.

Unfortunately, this report did not include a segment which was repeated in the previous two reports, regarding campaigns for discrediting non-governmental activists. During 2017, these campaigns were continued, even with greater intensity, against critically oriented NGOs, directly undermining their freedom of expression.

Some of the examples are articles and TV reports presented for months in media under direct control of the ruling party, directed against organisations which legitimately and with sound arguments pointed out the illegal dismissals of members of the RTCG Council.

During 2017, there were repeated texts in Pobjeda of alleged savings worth 46 millions of EUR on NGOs’ bank accounts, although we have denounced this in due manner, by pointing out that Central Bank classifies international organisations, as well as diplomatic missions, as NGOs.

The Report notes adoption of Amendments to the Law on NGOs and establishment of new system for financing projects. However, it was not noted that the Government has ultimately enabled state officials to participate in evaluation of these projects, which is entirely contrary to the requests of the large part of NGO sector, and which could render the entire process meaningless.

In the previous period we heard Government representatives saying on several occasions that the Report will in a certain way serve as a roadmap in all the areas it covers. It is hard for us to believe that the Government will change its relation to non-governmental sector in this climate, since in the period behind us we have not seen on a single occasion a desire for substantial changes.

Civil society certainly will not be a decor in the process of European integration of Montenegro. In this year, we will continue to point out to all the problems that non-governmental sector faces in its work and activities, as well as to propose solutions in that area.

NGOs Coalition “Cooperating Towards Goal” currently brings together 99 non-governmental organisations from all over Montenegro and represents the largest organised coalition of NGOs in the country

Ana Novaković
President of the Managing Board

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Public administration re/form – availability of public services or administrative stumbling?

Public administration reform is aimed at introducing necessary changes in order to enable accessibility of public services to all the citizens, i.e. participation in decision-making process based on transparency, removal of administrative and other barriers, faster business, available prices and equal conditions for all. This is certainly a multifaceted and interconnected process and citizens must not only be an objects of rights and passive users of the reform outcomes.

Persons with disabilities should be in focus of the public administration reform and all its principles, particularly within the principle of service delivery for marginalised groups, not only because they the public services beneficiaries, but also their financiers.

In a special focus on reform of public administration and all its principles, and so with regard to the principle of public services of a marginalized groups, in this case persons with disabilities must be in focus, not only because they are users of public services, but also and their financiers.

However, if we consider segments of public administration in terms of accessibility of public services in the context of Montenegrin administration or even legislation, we must not leave out the fact that jurisdiction for providing and accessibility of services for persons with disabilities is not defined. Attempts to determine jurisdiction for this issue when passing the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination of Persons with Disabilities, and later preparation of the Analysis of the compliance of Montenegrin regulations with the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination of Persons with Disabilities and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (1), were reduced on discussion without the conclusion – nothing was defined. Even more, accessibility as a specific right (2)  guaranteed for people with disabilities was reduced to accessibility of physical environment and traffic, while information and communication remained narrowly defined, while services have been simply omitted because none of the persons responsible for providing them understood what this principle and right means in practice.

In the context of the rights of persons with dissabilities, it is important to understand that all public services could be available to disabled person, but not simultaneously accessible, if accessibility as a precondition for their use is ignored or omitted (3).

I will explain this on the example of realization of one of the basic citizens’ rights in democratic society –  right to elect and to be elected, i.e. right to vote, the most powerful democratic mean and weapon of citizens, the one from which representatives of the people we elect should be afraid of us, and not, conversely, us afraid of them. Not so low number of disabled persons are deprived of this right, while for others it is limited, and I can conclude that there is almost no disabled person who is entitled to this right without any barriers.

For disabled persons to which this right is guaranteed and to some extent enabled, in practice the process looks like a “good” night mare.

To exercise the right to vote it is necessary to have personal documents: identity card and/or passport. This implies going to the local security center  in our residence town, where the following application should be submitted: application completed on the prescribed form, excerpt from the birth register, certificate of citizenship and photo taken on the spot. However,  the security centers’ premisses are not accessible for most of disabled persons, the application form must be completed with ballpoint pen, while the form itself is not adjusted to a certain number of people with disabilities. Experiences show that some disabled persons are being photographed in front of the security centers’ premises, where they also fill out the necessary forms and take over their identity card. Still, they pay the same price for that service like all other citizens, and are treated as being provided with “additional service”.

For visually impaired persons or persons with one or without both hands, the process of filling the forms and signing the papers when taking over their identitiy cards is a special procedure. Some desibled persons were not aloud to sign the papers in a way which is suitable for them, nor to, if they can, put  a finger print. In such cases, officers of the security centers have put and they  continue to put the label of illiteracy. In that way someone with university degree is being marked as illiterate.

All this, indeed, persons with disabilities can also do at home, but only by paying additional service. Besides the fact that they have not been given the equal and unobstructed services and procedures, they need to pay additional services, compared to other citizens.  Therefore, “procedural or reasonable adaptation”, in this case, represents discrimination based on disability because they predict different and unfavorable treatment for persons with disabilities, thus creating a false impression that they contribute to the exercise of procedural rights. The State, avoiding responsibility for existence of barriers, states that: “services within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Interior (MoI) are carried out at home and with the help of mobile teams, due to the inability of the clients to personally submit requests, including the proxy of the person who will take actions on behalf of the client”.

The same goes for electoral right on election day – inaccessible polling stations, polling booth and box, followed by incredible violations of the law, such as “enabling” voting in front of pooling station, violating secrecy and immediacy of voting, inserting a ballot on behalf of the voter or lowering the box, either way violating the law. Though this right we can perform from our homes too, rested in the armchair all the day waiting for electoral board who already knows for who we are going to vote in advance, and it lasts and lasts until the reforms passes, and we get stuck in processes that should bring us closer to a modern, faster and more efficient administration. Nobody bothered to calculate our time, while our dignity was reformed by others.

Marina Vujačić

Activist for rights of persons with disabilities

The blog is produced within a project “Civil Society for Good Governance: To Act and Account!” implemented by Institute Alternative, Bonum, Natura, New Horizon and Center for Investigative Journalism, funded by the European Union within Civil Society Facility Programm  and the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. (GMF). The contents of the report are the sole responsibility of the authors and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the donors.

(1) The Analysis of the compliance of Montenegrin regulations with the Law on Prohibition of the Discrimination of Persons with Disabilities and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is produced as an obligation of the Government of Montenegro regarding the Conclusion of the Parliament of Montenegro adopted upon passing the Law on Prohibition of the Discrimination of Persons with Disabilities, at a session held on June 26, 2015.

 (2) Accessibility is the special right of persons with disabilities guaranteed by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and includes accessibility of the built physical environment and facilities, information and communication, traffic, ITC and services.

 (3) Availability of services implies developed and ensured public services used by all the citizens, or special services designed for persons with disability, while accessibility implies possibility of access and use of this services by persons with different types of disabilities in the place, time and form, as well as to the extent which suits them most.

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Resignations of police executives

Comment of our researcher Dina Bajramspahic for daily newspaper ‘’Dan’’, on the reasons for the resignations of the former Director of the Police and Chief of the Center of Security in Podgorica, as well as other issues regarding the personnel policy of the Police:

I do not know if the resignations of the Director of the Police and the Chief of the Center of Security were really a moral act due to the sense of personal responsibility, or they were extorted. However, when it comes to the chief of the Center of Security, it is formally and legally impossible to resign this position at all, because the chiefs of the centers are not public officials, but civil servants. Although we are used to chiefs submitting ‘’resignations’’ because they work at important positions in the iPolice – they can only quit their job, not resign.

Public officials in the Police are only the Director and the four Deputy Directors. All police officers, including the chiefs, are civil servants. According to the current legislation, the Director of the Police can temporarily and/or permanently reassign the chiefs to another position when dissatisfied with their work. This leaves a huge space for discretionary decision making, so we have a practice that a group of executives is ‘’moving’’ from one managerial position in Police to another, for years. However, this is no longer easy as it was, because there is a growing number of former executives who do not have anywhere to be ‘’transfered’’ and so they remain unassigned.

For example, the former Chief of the Security Center in Podgorica and the former Director of the Police, now have nowhere to be assigned because all jobs with their rank, which is the highest one (chief police inspector), are already filled. This is happening because there is higher number of high titles than the high job positions.

The bad thing is that there is no practice of explaining decisions that are very important for the overall functioning in the Police, so we do not know which are the reasons for choosing someone and for replacing others. In the long run, this creates dissatisfaction and the lack of conviction that they have chosen the best ones, based on their merit. Therefore, in the Working Group for the preparation of the Law of Internal Affairs, we advocated that the leaders in the Police are selected through an internal vacancy, and not by the free will of the Director who can assign (and replace) them at any time. The essence of this proposal is that all candidates who fulfill the requirements and think that they can perform this job responsibly, get the chance to apply and ‘’be compared’’ to other candidates. In the end, of course, the decisions will continue to be made by the director, because he is responsible for the overall work of the Service. However, he will have to choose from the ranking list to which all interested candidates, with the results of work, will be represented. Another very important issue is the issue of the mandate. The director was protected by a mandate and could not be dismissed as easily as other executives in the Police. Therefore, if the decision of the internal vacancy is adopted, managers elected in this manner should also a receive a mandate by amending the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees. This does not mean that they will not be responsible if their work results are unsatisfactory, but it means that this must be prescribed by the law as the reasons for the dismissal and that they should be dismissed only according to that. All these issues have been inadequately regulated for years and have led to a very chaotic human resource management in the Police, which has an impact on its overall performance. Every day, some officials are praised, and then the next day we see them dismissed. Because of all of the shifts in the Police, I do not have great expectations, usually everything remains is as it was before.

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Montenegro – Reform Leader or Reform Simulacrum

Montenegro - Reform Leader or Reform Simulacrum

Six years since the start of accession negotiations, Montenegro is still a showcase of state capture. In the same manner it has been exhausting domestic democratic public for decades, Montenegrin Government masterfully applies the exhaustion strategy to the process of European integration, abusing the EU’s need for a new integration optimism.

Citizens cannot see progress in curbing the entanglement of public and ruling party’s interests, or in dismantling the links with organised crime and corruption at all levels of the government. Weak and politicised institutions, impunity for the corrupted officials and misuse of public funds, state interference into media market and jeopardizing of the independence of public broadcaster feat by ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), hostile actions towards critically oriented NGOs and targeting its leaders — all of them are still alive and well in Montenegro, Western Balkans “frontrunner” toward EU.

Hence, a key question in the EU-Montenegro relations must be answered — will the EU keep turning a blind eye to the absence of track record, perseverance of old and introduction of new undemocratic practices?

Accolades for the progress, as well as the persistent emphasis of the “leadership in the region” fail to motivate the authorities to do more and to do better. They also neither strengthen nor meaningfully include civil society, media and democratic opposition interested in reforms.

No one in Montenegro expects the EU to change the government or influence political developments in that respect. However, it is reasonable for the promoters of European integration to expect the European Commission (EC) to credibly demonstrate that a candidate country can earn leadership status and achieve progress by no means other than political will and implementation of reforms that deliver sustainable results.

It is about time that good neighbourly relations and constructive foreign policy, aligned with the EU and confirmed by the NATO membership, do not stand as major indicators of the country’s success and cease to be a trade-off for ever-growing need for the internal democratic reforms.

This paper presents a series of examples illustrating failure or facade of reforms in the key areas of rule of law, including the lack of follow up to electoral frauds, inflated statistics which mimics the lack of substantial results in the fight against organised crime and corruption, and selective approach of key anti-corruption institutions. They demonstrate a need for a different attitude of the European Union towards Montenegro, which would prevent authorities from faking reforms and make them deliver results needed for the lasting societal change.

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Unravelling Montenegro’s Frontrunner Status in the EU Accession Process

Unravelling Montenegro’s Frontrunner Status in the EU Accession Process

Montenegro opened accession negotiations with the EU in June 2012, being the first country to undergo the new approach, which frontloads rule of law criteria. The new approach places emphasis on Chapter 23 (Judiciary and Fundamental Rights) and Chapter 24 (Justice, Freedom and Security). The two chapters are opened early in the process, with the aim of allowing the country to adjust to complex reforms, which alongside technical aspects, capacity building and legislative alignment, require a track record of fighting organized crime and high level corruption.

Between June 2012 and January 2018, Montenegro opened 30 chapters and provisionally closed 3 chapters. In addition, following the “State of the Union” address by Commissioner Juncker, the newly announced Enlargement Strategy for the region outlined a clear perspective for the first time, with a potential date for Montenegro’s accession to the EU of 2025.1

Government officials often use the opening of negotiation chapters as an indicator of success. Nonetheless, the closure of most chapters is still pending. This depends, at least officially, on meeting selected interim benchmarks, which should lead to the closing benchmarks. The aim of this analysis is precisely to assess the selected interim benchmarks within Chapters 23 and 24. By benchmarks we imply concrete requirements which key EU enlargement documents specifically formulate for the Montenegrin authorities, whose conditions for implementation signify further progress along the country’s path to EU accession.

Apart from assessing the content of benchmarks and their adequacy for the domestic context, as well as moni- toring their implementation, we have tried to assess the monitoring tools used to judge the implementation of benchmarks and the achievement of the objectives which they define. In our view, this can serve as an indicator of the effectiveness of EU conditionality, and should provide guidance for enhancement of the current bench- marking system and EU conditionality in general.

The selected benchmarks encompass various aspects of Montenegro’s alignment with EU standards: legal and technical as well as the required track record of prosecuting organized crime and corruption, or the emphasis on establishing merit-based recruitment in public administration and the judiciary. The importance of analysing benchmarks is indicated by the lack of qualitative discussion about the content and consistency of EU conditionality. On the other hand, some countries are labelled frontrunners or stragglers in the process, despite a lack of in-depth analysis of the conditions imposed and their actual compliance with them.

The selected benchmarks are taken from official documents which outline the key conditions that Montenegro needs to meet for the two chapters, especially the EU’s common positions on the two chapters and their action plans. This analysis forms part of a wider regional project, which permits comparison of the benchmarks set for the two countries that are currently undergoing accession negotiations – Montenegro and Serbia. Conditions set for other candidate countries, as outlined in other enlargement documents (country reports; roadmaps; Enlargement strategy), have also been taken into account.

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Comments, Objections and Suggestions on the Draft Law on Public Procurement

The Draft Law on Public Procurement makes certain steps towards alignment with EU directives regulating public procurement, especially in terms of introducing new procedures prescribed by directives. Also, procurement of small value is partially better regulated. We have highlighted the issue of poor regulation of this type of procurement in the currently valid law on several occasions.

Hereby, we primarily refer to introducing the obligation of collecting at least three offers for these procurements, as well as the obligation to publish tenders and invoices/contracts in an electronic newspaper. However, we see space for further improvement of the solutions proposed in the draft which are to regulate procurement of small value.

Also, there is still space in the current draft for additional improvements in the part regulating centralized procurement, public procurement planning, criteria for selecting the most economically advantageous offer, regulation of procurement in the area of ​​security and defense, as well as misdemeanor liability for violations of the Public Procurement Law.

When it comes to procurement in the area of security and defense, it is rather important to consider the Law on Internal Affairs, which is under preparation, in order for the Law on Public Procurement and the Law on Internal Affairs to be harmonized on time in the part dealing with regulation of this area.

IA Team

Download here Comments, Objections and Suggestions on the Draft Law on Public Procurement