Institute Alternative (IA), Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN CG), Media Centre and the Centre for Civic Education (CCE) condemn the police intrusion into premises of the Budva City Hall, violence and arrests of municipal officials, civil servants and citizens.
We appeal for the detainees to be released, and the police and the Prosecutor’s office not to get involved into resolving the legal and political crisis in the local self-government of Budva. We call on the competent court to decide urgently on the relevant cases before this court.
We expect that procedures will be initiated before all supervisory and control mechanisms of the police work regarding the actions of the police. The police in a democratic society must not be abused for the interests of one political group.
We urge the European Union to send a strong warning to the President of Montenegro Milo Djukanović and the Prime Minister of Montenegro Duško Marković about the inappropriate interference of the Government and the police into political issues and local self-government affairs.
Milka Tadic Mijovic, President, CIN-CG Goran Djurovic, director, Media centre Daliborka Uljarevic, Executive Director, CCE Stevo Muk, President of the Managing Board, IA
Despite public administration optimisation measures, that are still in force and prescribe a 10 percent reduction of employees at the local level, twenty-one Montenegrin municipalities plan to hire 915 employees, during this, election year, and next year.
The Law on Local Self-Government from 2018 put municipalities under obligation to adopt human resources plans, which project the number of employees and changes in the human resources structure of local government bodies and services within them, in order to lead appropriate human resources policy and the establish hiring controls at the local level.
The municipalities that stood out in terms of required civil servants and employees are Kotor and Herceg Novi (121 each), followed by Bijelo Polje and Podgorica (94 each), Tuzi (66) and Tivat (53).
Although the Law prescribes a time limit for the fulfillment of this obligation, which is 30 days from the day of the adoption of the municipal budget, almost 80% of municipalities, 19 to be precise, didn’t adopt human resources plans within the legal deadline. The municipality of Budva did not submit a human resources plan to IA, on the basis of request for free access to information. The municipalities of Šavnik, Andrijevica and Ulcinj haven’t adopted human resources plans for 2020 even though half year from the legal deadline passed. While the first two municipalities didn’t provide an explanation for the delay, municipality of Ulcinj states that the human resources plan wasn’t adopted because “Decision on the organisation and manner of work of local government has not been made, as well as the Rulebook on internal Organisation and Systematisation.”
As we previously pointed out, saying that reorganisation is a reason for not adopting a human resources plan, beside violating the legal obligation, the municipality of Ulcinj shows a lack of understanding of the essence of human resources planning, which aim is to ensure the proper organisation of work. Particular concern is the fact that the municipality of Ulcinj hasn’t implemented its legal obligation since the entry into force of the new Law in 2018, and, as they claim in that municipality, the reason for not adopting human resources plans is waiting for a decision on the organisation. Although this municipality hasn’t implemented adequate human resources planning for the second year in a row, the institutions which are responsible for monitoring of the implementation of Law, primarily Ministry of Public Administration and Administrative Inspection, apparently haven’t done anything to improve the situation.
Although the Regulation of the content, procedure and manner of preparation and amendment of human resources plan prescribes that municipalities must include reasons for increasing number of employees in the explanation part of human resources plan, there are rare cases in which municipalities state mention for which jobs employees are needed and why. Thus, the needs for new employees are poorly explained: there is a need for 53 new employees to strengthen capacity (Tivat), 36 new employees in order to further strengthen administrative capacities (Cetinje), 34 employees will be hired because “financial resources have been provided” (Bar), while from Mojkovac thay say that 16 officials will be employed in accordance with the procedure provided by law, noting that municipality will respect the conclusion of the Government, which enabled possibility of hiring new employees, with the consent of the inner cabinet of the Government.
By introducing the Public Administration Optimisation plan, government promised to reduce the number of employees in public sector by 5% at the national level, and 10% at the local level. In this year, which is also election year, it is planned to hire 845 new employees at the national level, and 915 employees at the local level.
None of the 21 local governments which published human resources plan for 2020, expressed the need to reduce the number of civil servants or employees, with permanent status of employment. According to the latest report of Ministry of Public Administration, there is a reduction in the number of employees by 574 at the local level, while looking at the budget parameters, there is an increase in the total salary fund in municipalities from 47 million in 2018 to 58 million of euros in 2020.
Municipalities generally don’t explain whether an agreement on termination of employment with the payment of severance pay will be concluded with employees, with the exception of the Capital Podgorica, where in 2020 will come to a termination of employment on this basis for 9 employees, as well as Tivat, which states that in the previous year 3 employment agreements were terminated with employees, and that “the same is planned in 2020”. Although there is a reduction of employees with the severance pay, there is a danger that the vacancies will be filled by hiring new employees, and thus optimisation will be obstructed.
For example, the Capital states that in 2020 there will be an agreed termination of employment with severance pay for an independent correspondent for processing accounting documents, while in the next sentence it states that currently there is a process of filling a vacancy for the same position. The same case is with the independent advisor for normative affairs, whose employment in the Capital was terminated in 2019 with the payment of severance pay, while the following text states that the internal call for filling this job position was published in January 2020.
We invite municipalities and the competent Ministry to pay due attention regarding compliance with law obligations of human resources planning at the local level. Unfortunately, their engagement in this issue mainly stops at pointing out the fact that human resources planning has found place in the new Law on Local Self-Government, while dealing with the content and quality of these plans, ie their non-adoption, has been neglected. Implementing Law like this is an indicator that prescribing an obligation without respecting it, in practice cannot be assessed as progress, but as a worrying lack of responsibility, supervision and lack of will to improve human resource management.
A new non-paper for chapters 23 and 24 in Montenegro will be published soon. Here are our first comments for daily newspapers Vijesti:
In general, one not really positive image. This report is not that much about critics as it is ”faded” and testifies to more than worrying stagnation, bearing in mind that we are near the end of the eight year of accession negotiations.
In the reporting period, there was nothing that made the institutions stand out and shine, especially not in regard the reform of the judiciary. Instead of tapping in one place, this is the time when Montenegro should make ”seven-mile steps”, show maturity as a society and dynamically change for the better.
The report also shows that the situation in Chapter 23 is worse than in Chapter 24, where at least some technical issues are being addressed and certain statistics are offered as a shift compared to the previous period.
Dina Bajramspahić, IA’s representative in the Working Group for Chapter 23: Instead of coming to the end of rationalisation of judicial network, the analysis that precedes the preparation of a new rationalisation strategy is reportedly just being started. Usual steps when you do not want to do anything – in addition to dozens of good analysis that already exist, a new analysis is being done, for a new strategy, then a new action plan, so maybe in five years the activity in direction of rationalisation may be implemented. This shows that the negotiating structure is in no hurry to complete the negotiations and that all important reforms are being left for the end of negotiations, which is not even in our sight. The statements about the serious excessive number of judges, prosecutors and judicial employees are repeated from report to report, the judiciary denies it, although rationalisation is one of the transitional criteria in Chapter 23. Rationalisation is important because it is the only opportunity that ones who are the best – remain in the judiciary.
Report repeated that the Judicial and Prosecutorial Councils are still under unacceptable political influence which is another problem that the institutions are not trying to address. Court presidents are persistently elected for more than two terms, contrary to international recommendations. Constitutional Court is headed by a fictitious ”presiding” judge, which seriously undermines trust in the credibility of this institution.
Accountability in judiciary is in the same place it was before all the reforms, which is very devastating. Report also commented on the fact that all of the prosecutors were rated as ”excellent”, which really questions the objectivity of the evaluation. Only one disciplinary procedure in the judiciary, none in the prosecutor’s offices – in which even judicial inspection throughout 2019 did not find a single irregularity.
Judicial statistics remain unreliable, number of procedures left behind remain high.
In areas of particular risk for corruption, it is stated that results have yet to be shown. Report pointed out 44 murders from 2012 related to criminal clans which continued in 2020, and also that our crime is being exported abroad by mentioning 9 murders abroad since 2018, in connection with Montenegrin clans. This finding should be of particular concern to the institutions, since EU member stated do not want that such problems become integral part of the EU.
Thus, the same problems are rewritten from year to year in the reports and there are no significant changes. It is important to point out that non-paper is not an analytical report and does not contain the assessments, recommendations and guidelines contained in the annual report on Montenegro.
Dina Bajramspahić,
IA’s Representative in Chapter 23 Working Group
Commentary is originally published in today’s Vijesti newspaper, and also on the Vijesti’s portal.
Action for Human Rights (HRA) and Institute Alternative (IA) urge Police Administration to harmonise their actions and to stop selective treatments of participants of different public assemblies. During the general ban of public assemblies, police allowed citizens to gather without any restrictions, while they were warning the participants of the car-protests who were celebrating saints and were protesting because of arrest of priests not to gather, and even prosecuted them for the excessive use of signalisation in traffic, thus showing unequal application of law.
The day after May 12, when the convoy of cars gathered in honour of St. Basil of Ostrog was heading from Tivat to Budva and back, 25 citizens were invited for an investigative interview, and 14 of them were fined. Participants in such car-protests were fined because they used sound and light signals while driving, contrary to Articles 53 and 55 of the Law on Road Traffic Safety.
On the other hand, during the celebration of the Independence Day of Montenegro on May 21st, no one who participated in these motorcades, which were organised in almost all of the municipalities of Montenegro, were not fined for a similar offence, although videos available on the internet show that these citizens acted in the same way as the participants who were fined before.
Also, May 13 in Montenegro will be remembered for the protests against the arrest of Serbian Orthodox Church priests, clashes between citizens and police, tear gas and excessive use of power. Prior to the outbreak of the conflict, the police warned those gathered to leave stating that protest is violation of the measures prohibiting public assemblies, and after warning the force was used, with the explanation that those gathered were the first to start violent behavior. Also, for the Independence Day, the police did not try in any way to prevent gatherings, although the ban on public gatherings was still active.
The prohibition of discrimination is prescribed by the Constitution and laws of Montenegro, as well as international human rights treaties. The Law on Internal Affairs requires that the conduct of police work is based, inter alia, on the principles of non-discrimination, legality, professionalism, proportionality in the exercise of authority and equality.
The European Court of Human Rights found a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights in cases where the authorities supported protests which they organised as they wanted, while on the other hand, they unjustifiably restricted protests of the ones critically oriented who wished to gather at the same place, at the same or approximately the same time (e.g. Makhmudov v. Russia, 2007).
In addition, with regard to the organisation of street protests, the European Court also pointed out that demonstrations in public can cause a certain level of disruption to normal lifestyles, including disruption of traffic, and that the authorities should therefore show a tolerance (Kudrevičius v. Lithuania). If the government has already decided not to show tolerance towards the participants in some protests, who were fined for excessive use of signalisation on vehicles, then it should have done the same with the participants of the other assemblies. These finings appear as discriminatory measure, which was obviously not necessary, because the same type of behaviour was tolerated at the other protests.
Fining multiple participants can also have deterrent effect, thus discouraging potential participants from future assemblies to participate, which is also contrary to the right to freedom of assembly.
Therefore, it is necessary for the Police Directorate to ensure that the police treat participants of all assemblies in the same way, whether they are celebrating or criticising authorities, as long as the assemblies do not promote violence and advocate the annulment of human rights.
HRA and IA jointly implement the project ‘’Voice Your Rights! – Expanding Space for Free Assemblies’’, supported by European Union through the Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, Program for Montenegro 2018. Content of this initiative is sole responsibility of IA and HRA and in no way reflect the views of European Union.
TEN members took part at the closed-door workshop „The COVID-19 Pandemic in the Western Balkans: Effects on Democracy, Rule of Law, and Civil Society“ organised by the Aspen Institute Germany.
The workshop gathered an expert community from the EU and the region, along with the officials from the EU and its member states. As a basis for discussion, six TEN representatives presented a working paper which addressed possible long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the countries of the region to the critical democratic principles and the rule of law.
The participants also discussed the way forward in the upcoming period, stressing the importance of empowering the civil society, media and the national parliaments in their watchdog functions and not neglecting women and vulnerable groups as the most affected by the ongoing pandemic.
The insights from the discussion will feed into the forthcoming TEN policy brief, which tackles the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to the functioning of the rule of law and democracy in the Western Balkans.
Survey results on public opinion showed that the number of citizens who do not know what is public procurement had almost doubled. Even 71% citizens explicitly stated that they did not know what public procurement meant and could not describe the term in a few words.
Ana Đurnić, Public Policy Researcher at Institute Alternative (IA) explained for PR Center that citizens do not identify what they see every day – schools, kindergartens, roads, hospitals, street lighting etc. with public procurement, even though all this is purchased through public procurement.
“Our goal through the project “For the better use of public money!” is to shed light on what public procurement is. Also, to bring citizens closer what the money for public procurement is spent on, and to show the administration that citizens will understand public procurement much better through what they see and what encounter every day”, Đurnić added.
Survey results showed that six out of ten citizens (59%) believed that government policy in the field of public procurement was not sufficiently transparent or inclusive of citizens.
“These results are not surprising, since in the past five years we have witnessed numerous situations that are not in the spirit of transparency”, said Dragana Jaćimović, project associate at IA.
She reminded that a good example of non-transparency was the adoption of the new Law on Public Procurement without organising a public discussion and public participation.
Since the chief social function of the media is citizen information, this survey included question on whether there was adequate media coverage of the topics related to public procurement abuse.
“According to the data, six out of ten citizens thought that the media did not pay sufficient attention to the importance of countering malfeasance and abuse of public procurement”, Jaćimović said.
She stated that one-half of citizens (51%) of Montenegro thought that abuse and malfeasance were frequent phenomena in public procurement implementation. 32% of citizens thought that malfeasance and abuse occurred mainly frequently and 19% of them that occurred very frequent.
“On the other hand, 23% of citizens thought that abuse and malfeasance were mainly rare, while only 8% stated that were very rare”, Jaćimović added.
When it comes to the specific patterns of abuse, such as links between political and economic actors i.e. political parties and their donors, survey results show that three types of abuse are recognised as frequent.
Đurnić explained that the first type of abuse – where companies, having won tenders, show their gratitude to the parties by donating them money in the next election, was seen as the most frequent one.
“20% of citizens thought that this occurred almost always, 27% frequently, and 24% sometimes. In aggregate, almost one-half of the general population of Montenegro thought that such malfeasance took place often or almost always”, Đurnić added.
The second type of abuse – where political actors showed gratitude to those who donated to the party or for the campaign by awarding them procurement contracts after winning the election or coming to power, was somewhat less frequent than the first one.
In aggregate, 40% of the general population of Montenegro thought that this form of abuse occurred frequently or almost always.
Đurnić said that two-fifths of the Montenegrin public (39%) thought that the form of manipulation where a change of minister in charge of a particular sector means also a change in the selection of companies that the ministry does business with through public procurement was frequent or even regular.
“However, with this third type of abuse was also evident higher share of those undecided in their responses i.e. not sure which frequency to opt for”, Đurnić explained.
Asked whether the public procurement process is better now, one-half of citizens answered that public procurement procedures and processes were being implemented in the same manner as 5 years before, so neither better nor worse.
There was an almost equal share of those who thought that the public procurement process was better (19%) and those who thought it was worse (18%) than five years before, Đurnić said.
This public opinion survey has been developed by Ipsos Strategic Marketing for the needs of Institute Alternative. The survey was conducted in Montenegro between 30 January and 10 February 2020 on the sample of 1007 respondents. This survey was developed within the project “For the Better Use of Public Money!”, implemented by Institute Alternative and funded by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
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We appeal for the detainees to be released, and the police and the Prosecutor’s office not to get involved into resolving the legal and political crisis in the local self-government of Budva. We call on the competent court to decide urgently on the relevant cases before this court.
TEN members took part at the closed-door workshop „The COVID-19 Pandemic in the Western Balkans: Effects on Democracy, Rule of Law, and Civil Society“ organised by the Aspen Institute Germany.
Survey results showed that six out of ten citizens (59%) believed that government policy in the field of public procurement was not sufficiently transparent or inclusive of citizens.
Đurnić explained that the first type of abuse – where companies, having won tenders, show their gratitude to the parties by donating them money in the next election, was seen as the most frequent one.