The Administrative Committee has again violated the law and acted despite the majority will of NGOs
We are disappointed by the decision of the Administrative Committee to propose the appointment of another representative of the NGO “Civic Alliance” as a member of the Council of the Agency for Electronic Media (AEM), by discriminating the candidate of the Association of Youth with Disabilities and therefore making procedures and criteria utterly pointless.
According to the law, the key criteria for the election are the number of NGOs that support the candidate and the candidate’s experience in the field of human rights and freedoms. On both counts, candidate Marina Vujačić had an advantage over the candidate supported by deputies.
Vujačić was supported by 38 non-governmental organizations, while the candidate of the Civic Alliance was supported by less than half that number, which is 18 non-governmental organizations. These are undisputable organizations as confirmed by the very Administrative Committee’s control and verification of the number of legal and legitimate proposals of support.
Actions speak in the case of the experience of the candidate of the Association of Youth with Disabilities of Montenegro (AYDME), as well as the experiences of persons to whom the AYDME has been providing help and support for years, as well as the systemic fight for equal opportunities for persons with disabilities.
We consider that this proposal of the Administrative Committees significantly contributes to the development of monopoly in electronic media management, furthermore it raises the question of conflict of interests given that the Civic Alliance already had a representative at the Council of the Agency for Electronic Media. The members of the Administrative Committee are unable to explain to the public as to why they are proposing this candidate and rejecting the candidacy of the representative of AYDME. This is precisely why a mechanism of proposing of the representatives of NGOs and its criteria were formulated, in order to stop the electoral controversy and discretionary decision-making, as well as to put to stop the intermingling of political parties’ interests, which the deputies in the Administrative Committee decided to neglect.
The practice of neglect of the formal criteria and making the naming procedure of NGOs pointless by making political decisions by the Administrative Committee is not new, and as a rule it appears to be happening when it comes to naming a representative of the Civic Alliance. Besides the fact that the same organization will have two out of five members of the Council of AEM, it also has a representative in the Council of Public Service of RTCG. The appointment of the representative of the CA caused a lot of controversy even then, and a great number of organizations expressed their strong opposition to such practice of the Administrative Committee during previous two cases.
We would like to remind the public that even besides the official request of the Council of AEM that the Administrative Committee reconsider the conflict of interests of Darko Ivanović, the Administrative Committee refuses to put this question in its daily agenda.
Institute alternative will together with other NGOs reconsider further participation in the procedure of proposing representatives of NGOs in public institutions, given that the overall procedure is made pointless with direct political involvement, with providing advantage to politically suitable candidates despite the rules and criteria, as well as disrespect of legal provisions by the Administrative Committee of the Parliament.
