We have delivered our comments and suggestions for improvement to the Draft Law on Public Assembly and Public Performances, which is to be discussed soon, to the MPs, members of the Committee on Political System, Judiciary and Administration.
Generally, this Draft is better and far more precise when compared to the Law on public assembly which is currently in force. The greatest breakthrough of this draft is the transfer of responsibility for maintaining public peace and order from the organizers of public assemblies to the Police Administration. If this solution were to be adopted, the state could meet its obligations: negative, to abstain of interfering in exercise of right to public assembly and positive, to ensure the possibility to organize a peaceful assembly. Another important change refers to the more effective legal remedy, given that the organizer of can submit a complaint directly to the Administrative Court, which has to decide upon it within 48 hours of receipt of the case files from the Police.
However, we recognize that there is still space for further improvements of the draft, as well as for the more precise definition of the obligations of the state and the rights of citizens, in order to contribute to legal certainty and security of this act which is regulating this area of human rights. Aforementioned mainly concern:
a) locations where public assemblies are banned,
b) the duties of the Police Administration in cases where it temporarily restrict freedom of assembly,
c) the legal recognition of different forms of public gathering.
IA Comments in their entirety can be found here (so far, only in Montenegrin)
