Contrary to the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees, the Agency does not do appraisals of its employees’ performance since the establishment of this institution.
Therefore, rights of employees are violated by leaving it up to director to arbitrarily decide on their promotion or demotion, without basing it objectively in the performance appraisals.
Contrary to the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees, the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption did not do performance appraisal of its employees in 2016 and 2017.
This year, further to the request for free access to information, the Institute Alternative received Agency’s response that it is not in possession of appraisals of its employees’ work, while last year they provided a more detailed explanation for failure to do appraisals.
“The Agency for Prevention of Corruption is an autonomous and independent body established by the Parliament of Montenegro. Employees of the Agency are subject to the regulations on civil servants and employees solely in terms of rights, obligations and responsibilities which does not include performance appraisals. Accordingly, performance appraisal of employees in the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption is not done,” reads the last year’s decision on the request for free access to information of the Institute Alternative.
This is problematic due to the fact that employees in the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption are also civil servants and state employees, whose salaries are paid out of the state budget. In addition, the Law on Prevention of Corruption explicitly stipulates that regulations on civil servants and state employees apply to rights, obligations and responsibilities of employees in the Agency.
Appropriate application of the rights, obligations and responsibilities from the Law on civil servants and state employees undoubtedly includes employees’ performance appraisals. This Law stipulates that performance appraisals of civil servants and state employees is done for the purpose of monitoring their work and making proper decisions on their career development in service.
Hence, performance appraisal of civil servants and state employees is the basis for exercising their right to promotion in service, or demotion if they received negative appraisal. Therefore, the right of Agency’s employees to merit based career development in service is in this way violated and left to the discretionary decision of the director of the Agency, reached not on the basis of work merits, but according to his personal consideration.
This is particularly problematic given the fact that it considers civil servants of the institution under the public eye over the last two years, and especially over the last few months. On several occasions, domestic and international public expressed doubt about the efficient operation of this institution and therefore its management and employees. According to the Law on civil servants and state employees, performance appraisals of employees is done once a year, at the latest by the 31st of January of the current year for the previous year. Performance appraisal of a civil servant or state employee is made by the decision of a head of state authority at the proposal of immediate manager. Performance appraisal criteria are: achieved performance results, independence and creativity in performing tasks, quality of cooperation established with parties and associates at work, quality of work organization in performing the tasks, other competencies, skills and quality in performing the tasks.
Ana Đurnić
Public Policy Researcher
