The Law on Free Access to Information is one of the main tools used by research centers, non-governmental organisations, and the media. In Montenegro, the current Law was adopted in 2012 with the aim of establishing a legal framework aligned with European standards in the field of free access to information. The amendments introduced five years later further narrowed the scope of access to information held by public authorities.
Over the past 13 years, since its adoption in 2012 until 2025, the Law has undergone only one set of amendments, adopted in 2017. In the meantime, there have been several attempts over the past five years to adopt amendments to the Law; however, these proposals never reached consideration in Parliament, as they were either archived or withdrawn. In July 2024, the Government formed a working group to draft a new Law, which further delayed the improvement of the legal framework for free access to information. The draft of the new Law on Free Access to Information has been in parliamentary procedure for nine months, since February 2025.
The aim of this report is to provide an overview of the chronology of amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information, as well as the unsuccessful attempts to adopt changes that would address the problematic provisions of the current law.