We appeal to the ruling majority to respect the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly and enable the passage of opposition proposals in accordance with Article 75, as well as the exercise of the control function of the Assembly.
The Rules of Procedure guarantee the right of the opposition that, twice during the regular session, at their request, the committee decides on the control hearing. More and more frequent challenges to this right threaten the control function of the parliament.
Today’s non-decision on the request for a control hearing of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Filip Ivanović, and the Minister of European Affairs, Maida Gorčević, on the subject of “Deviation of the government representatives from the official foreign policy of Montenegro and the consequences that this has on the EU integration process”, submitted by five members of the opposition, showed that the parliamentary majority does not respect then right given to the opposition.
We remind that, in 2020, the representatives of the parties that make up this parliamentary majority changed the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly to enable the opposition’s right to a control hearing by minority initiative twice instead of once during the session, and that this was then presented as a democratic step forward. Difficult passage of opposition proposals for control hearings was also demonstrated at the session of the Committee for Economy, Finance, and Budget held at the beginning of March, where it was decided to request the opinion of the Collegium of the President of the Assembly regarding two minority initiatives to hold control hearings.
Additionally, although the Committee for Security and Defense subsequently adopted the initiative on the control hearing on the occasion of the election of the acting director of the Police Administration, the adoption of this initiative was followed by dilemmas regarding how it should be decided on this matter – whether it should be voted on or not. The initiative was adopted at the next session, but the control hearing has not yet been conducted.
The subject of this analysis are public competitions for managerial positions in the Montenegrin state administration, with a special focus on the competence check, which should be carried out in relation to the previously established framework - which includes innovation, leadership, results-orientation, communication, and cooperation.
Failure to issue minutes of interviews conducted with candidates for such positions is a limiting methodological factor in the assessment of procedures and their application in practice. However, we were able to review the reports on the verification of knowledge, abilities, competences, and skills with key questions and evaluations given by members during interviews, as part of the procedure of public competitions, conducted in the period between September 2022 and September 2023. Therefore, this analysis is a unique opportunity to present to the general public what it looks like in practice, but also how the institute of follow-up interviews, which is conducted before making the final decision on the selection, works.
The reports we have seen show that competency assessments have not taken root, which points to the need to further strengthen the capacities of all state authorities and the Human Resources Administration, in order to apply the competency framework as a tool that can help establish a system of merit-based recruitment.
Political parties promise meritocracy, but only declaratively. In the first episode, Milena Muk, a public policy researcher at Institute Alternative (IA), explains what changes need to be made in the legal framework and practice so that public sector employment becomes more competitive.
The lack of progress since the change of government in 2020 regarding public sector employment is evident, especially in the most problematic part of the public sector – public enterprises, for which there is still no systemic law regulating this area.
However, as Muk points out, the situation is not much better even when it comes to state administration. For this reason, Institute Alternative issued an Action Call, presenting clear guidelines and deadlines for fulfilling what has so far been only declarative advocacy of parliamentary parties during election campaigns.
In the Call, addressed to the members of the Parliament, and the cabinets of the President and PM of Montenegro, IA outlines recommended legislative activities, such as prescribing the obligation to select the best-ranked candidate, establishing rules for public advertising in all segments of the public sector, as well as prescribing a minimum fifteen-day duration of public advertisements, regardless of the sector in question…
Clear recommendations, along with the timeline of by when they should be implemented, will be subject to monitoring by IA, which will inform the public about the status of their implementation.
“The problems are manifold and often oversimplified in public discourse”, Muk stated, adding that there are also associated issues with poor control – especially in terms of inspection oversight regarding regulations on state officials and employees.
When asked if these problems are being addressed by better legislation, Muk, who is also a member of the Working group drafting the new Law on Civil Servants and State Employees, states that discussions in the mentioned body mostly revolve around reinstating ‘old criteria’ reduced by amendments to the Law in 2021, while more advanced changes to the Law she advocates are vaguely mentioned.
She points out that particularly problematic intention to retain discretionary power not to select the best-ranked; in other words, a norm is introduced where top-ranked candidates are hired ‘as a rule’, but not ‘necessarily’ or always, opening up space for exceptions as we have had so far, which are not a guarantee of meritocracy.
Institutions are doing everything to reduce competitiveness in the public sector
As a clear indicator of a rigged competition, Muk notes that institutions often do everything to deter candidates from even applying to the public competition, and actively work on reducing competitiveness in the public sector.
‘Often, there is a single footnote in some regulation saying, for example, that you do not have the most adequate medical certificate or laboratory results, and when you scratch the surface of regulations, you realise it was the duty of institutions to indicate which certificates are valid and necessary’, Muk highlights.
The transparency of the competition process itself is problematic, as information on candidates’ Q&As is often not accessible to the public.
‘We often point out that hiring through a political party, familial or nepotistic lines does not happen just because someone presents a party membership card, or shows their ‘family tree’ to the minister, but happens mostly within legal frameworks that are so fragile, loose, and prone to abuse that non-competitive hiring is legalised”, Muk concludes.
Justice is (un)attainable, even when the court rules in favour of citizens
Muk notes that in the process of protecting the rights of citizens who believe they have been discriminated during job competitions in the public sector, there is inconsistency and discrimination.
‘Roughly speaking, regulations on state officials and employees, including the local level, apply to about a quarter of the total public sector. This means that the majority of other institutions and companies apply general labour regulations. The average duration of administrative disputes has drastically increased, now lasting over 500 days. Practically, a year and a half, which is not efficient even when the Administrative Court rules in favour of those who initiated the administrative disputes’, Muk states.
An additional problem is that the Administrative Court often does not make so-called meritorious decisions, which means that it does not resolve disputes conclusively but returns them for reconcideration.
“These are ping-pong situations, where first-instance authorities simply learn better how to legalise the initial bad practice”, Muk concludes.
This podcast was created as part of the project Strengthening the demands of citizens to meritocracy, which Institute Alternative implements with the support of the British Embassy in Podgorica. The content of the podcast is the sole responsibility of Institute Alternative and does not necessarily reflect the views of the donors.
The cross-section of the work of seven inspectorates in Montenegro and the inspections coordination mechanisms in Croatia and Serbia were the topic of the second meeting we held within the framework of the project Inspections without protection: Allies in the fight against corruption.
On March 27, Institute Alternative organised the second meeting of representatives of inspection bodies, civil society, the judiciary and other institutions in charge of preventing corruption.
At the meeting, we presented an analysis of the work of seven inspection bodies whose work we monitor as part of the project. The analysis includes inspections that operate within the Administration of Inspection Affairs – Labour Inspectorate, Public Procurement Inspectorate and Health and Sanitary Inspectorate, and inspectorates that are part of the ministries (Administrative Inspectorate, Budget Inspectorate, State Property Inspectorate, Urbanism and Spatial Planning Inspectorate).
During the second part of the meeting, experts from Croatia and Serbia presented different work models and coordination of inspection bodies, especially from the aspect of strengthening integrity and anti-corruption mechanisms.
The aim of the meeting was to deepen the discussion about the current situation, the future direction of regulation of inspection supervision and adaptation of the legal framework to a more effective role of inspections in the fight against corruption.
The meeting was organised within the framework of the project Inspect to Protect: Turning Inspectorates Into Anti-Corruption Allies supported by the Embassy of the United States in Montenegro, the State Department’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL).
At the local level, the number of employees has increased by more than one-third over the past decade, despite no new responsibilities being assigned to the municipalities. What would happen to this number if we proceeded with process of decentralisation, a path the Ministry of Public Administration is confidently pursuing despite the obvious problems in municipal operations?
Out of 15,869 employees, more than half are in local public enterprises, a figure that the Ministry of Public Administration does not include in its list of public sector employees.
You can read more about how the employee database at the local level is not updated and how rarely anyone is interested in this data – here.
The Government and the Ministry of Public Administration should undertake the reform of inspection oversight only after conducting an analysis of the state and results of the work of the Administration for Inspection Affairs and inspections operating within ministries.
The process of decentralising inspections is a political decision. This is confirmed by the Minister of Public Administration, Marash Dukaj, in response to our question as to why this process was initiated even though it is not planned by the strategic framework of public administration reform. A minister, speaking at a round table on the Draft Law amending laws regulating inspection oversight, stated that the Ministry of Public Administration only implements conclusions made collectively by the Government.
To remind, in January 2024, the Government adopted an information on inspection oversight with conclusions on the need for reforming the existing system and establishing a decentralised model. Short deadlines were set based on inadequate analysis of the state. As a baseline, conclusions from the Efficiency Analysis of the Administration for Inspection Affairs from 2021 were considered, without assessing the work of inspections operating within ministries. Meanwhile, the Government has published a Draft Law amending laws containing provisions on inspection oversight.
Although the Draft Law amending laws regulating inspection oversight predicts changes to as many as 85 laws, the Ministry of Public Administration claims that it is merely terminological harmonisation rather than substantive decentralisation of inspections. They argue that this solution can fit into all models of inspection oversight.
At the roundtable on this Draft Law, held on Friday at the ReSPA center in Danilovgrad, the Ministry of Public Administration stated that public consultation is not necessary for this law, nor is it necessary to conduct a Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) because the changes do not alter the essence of the laws.
It was also mentioned at the roundtable that the Draft does not contain all the provisions that need to be amended, as after publishing the draft, ministries submitted amendments to the Working Group, which speaks volumes about the haste in this process.
At the round table, we did not hear adequate arguments for why the Government insists on this rushed reform before conducting all appropriate analyses and proceeding with the reform of inspection oversight in Montenegro based on those conclusions. Representatives of the media and other non-governmental ogranisations were not present at the round table.
Changes in the functioning model of state bodies are justified, but they must be implemented based on analyses, strategically planned, and in line with existing strategic goals in the field of public administration reform. Therefore, we call on the Government and the Ministry of Public Administration to approach inspection reform only after conducting an analysis of the state and results of the work of the Administration for Inspection Affairs and inspections operating within ministries, and then plan further activities accordingly.
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