Regarding the adopted Draft Strategy for the fight against corruption and organized crime, for the period 2010-2014
The Monitoring Center does not entirely accept the text of the third version of the Strategy for fight against corruption and organized crime for the period 2010-2014. The entire text contains numerous flaws, which call into question the quality and purpose of the Strategy. Because of professional integrity, we cannot accept part of the Strategy which relates to financing of political parties and electoral process. This section was, in the first version of the document, one of the contributions by our organization, and after the adoption by the Government and public hearings, numerous decisions that demanded change were not approved. Thus, such process does not represent anything more than political advertising. After the fourth version of this document is prepared by the Government of Montenegro, CEMI will determine its attitude toward the rest of the text.
After 45 sessions of Inter-sectional Working Group in charge of preparation of the Strategy, the third version of the Strategy for the fight against corruption and organized crime was prepared, which will once more pass through the process of approval by the Government. Until now three versions of the document were prepared and it is expected that the Government will revise the existing version, resulting in fourth, possibly the final version of the document.
The first version of the document was the subject to consensus by 12 representatives of the Government and state institutions and 2 representatives of the NGO sector. This version has undergone a review from international experts hired by OSCE, and was additionally the subject of analysis by the experts of the European Commission, so their comments directly relate to this text. However, the text sent to the European Commission was not the draft text that the Government has changed, but instead the first version that was supported by all members of the Working Group.
The adopted Draft, or its second version, did not contain the key issues that were identified during the long-lasting work of the Working Group, as opposed to the first draft of the Strategy that contained the main problem areas, description of the situation in these areas and the most applicable goals for the solution of existing problems. However, the Government concluded that it is necessary to narrow the analysis of the current state into praising the implemented reforms, while the problems highlighted in the proposal of the Working Group were excluded from the text of the Strategy or were „wrapped“ into insufficiently clear formulations. The participation of the civil sector in the preparation of the text served only as a decoration, in order to give legitimacy to the document which represents political declaration from the Government.
In such a way, the efforts of the Working Group were nullified, decisions on which the consensus was achieved between civil society and representatives of state institutions were removed, and such attitude challenged the authority of international actors who assessed the proposed text of Strategy as „high-quality.“ The adoption of this text shows that the priority of the Government of Montenegro was to gain political points before the international community, rather than to adopt high-quality document which would ensure efficient fight against the corruption. Unlike the members of the Government who modified the initial text, we believe that the best evidence of Montenegro’s political will to deal with corruption and organized crime as a state would be to adopt the strategy, which was unanimously brought by the representatives of the Government and NGO sector within the Working Group. Instead, the Government opted for a sharp reaction to their representatives in the Working Group, rejected most of the text and sent a message to the European Union and public that it does not want to acknowledge the real state of these problems. Consequently, certain ministers jeopardize the dynamics of attaining the candidate status, because the Government in the case of most sensitive question emphasized by the EU demonstrated the intention that it still does not want to undertake decisive actions in suppressing corruption and organized crime.
The Working Group has continued to hold sessions during the public hearing in order to integrate European Commission’s comments that were made to the initial text of the strategy, adopted by the Working Group, as well as other comments made to the adopted version of the Draft Strategy. The Draft Strategy adopted by the Government has not yet been forwarded to the European Commission. It is absurd that the Working Group completed its work before the public debate officially finished, or on the day of its completion and was thus unable, as we are informed by the representatives of other non-governmental organizations, to take into consideration all comments that it received. Instead, we hope, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Public Administration will undertake such reconsideration process.
In addition to these controversies, a significant change in the working dynamic of IWG was noticed. Specifically, the members who voted for the first draft of the Strategy now refused to reintegrate the initial solutions into the text, without argument debate. It is obvious that the political will of the Government became sufficient argument by which the representatives of institutions were able to defend the new draft of Strategy („why should we revert back to such text when they will delete it again? “) Instead of constructive dialogue that has characterized the sessions of the Working Group, the representatives of institutions now held quite inflexible attitude regarding changes to the draft adopted by the Government and its harmonization with received proposals.
The product of such refusal is considerably flawed text of the Strategy, which lacks clearly defined problems and which is cluttered with inspirational statements which are more fit for speeches, not strategic documents (such as: „Fair and democratic elections are the basis of any democratic political system.“) Some of the initial solutions were returned in the amended form, but it is not certain that it will endure the next review by the Government.
Given the above, we believe that it is necessary, due to professional integrity, to distance ourselves from certain parts of the Strategy that will be adopted. We have a number of objections to the text in almost every area, and we choose to present the dissenting opinion on the area „Financing of political parties and electoral process,“ because it was one of a series of parts that the Monitoring Center prepared and that the Working Group initially adopted.
We do not accept text that is in the third version of the Draft Strategy for fight against corruption and organized crime, which reads:
"Fair and democratic elections are the basis of any democratic political system. Montenegro has made significant progress in the field of election legislation and its application in practice, and achieved level of democratic maturity of the Montenegrin society, which was confirmed in previous assessments of ODIHR and other organizations on compliance with international standards in the implementation of fair and democratic parliamentary elections in Montenegro (2006, 2009). Dedicated to further improving of the electoral process, Montenegro will continue to closely monitor and implement recommendations from the reports ODIHR.”
which was included in the Strategy after the initial text was deleted:
"The existing legal framework does not ensure compliance of the work of the State Election Commission with international standards contained in the documents of ODIHR, in terms of establishing an independent institution composed of professionals, whose composition and structure will guarantee the independence in decisions of the executive power and political parties. The solution according to which the authority to supervise law enforcement in the area of financing of political parties, electoral campaign entrusted with state institution – to the Ministry of Finance has proved to be unsustainable in practice."
Explanation: Montenegro still has no electoral process that meets international standards and it is stated in all documents of relevant international organizations, as well as in reports of the European Commission. In the progress report from 2009, it was concluded that "further efforts are needed to ensure complete separation between the state and party structures, as well as to assure more transparent allocation of parliamentary seats. The new law on state property provides a framework that ensures a clear division between state and party resources, including the electoral process, but it has yet to be implemented." Also, it was concluded that Montenegro still lacks "strong and independent audit institution which would revise reports on assets and financing of political parties."
In Montenegro, there is no independent and professional institution, which controls the election. Namely, the criteria for the appointment of the State Election Commission are not clearly defined, and priority is given to party affiliation. The criteria for selecting members of the SEC and the organization of this commission are defined by only three articles of the Law on appointment of Councilors and MPs. This law stipulates that members of the Commission must be qualified lawyers, while further qualifications in terms of experience and level of expertise are not defined.
The second problem in the work of the State Election Commission is related to continuity. In fact, this body got its first employee in April 2010, by professionalization of the position of the President. Until then, the SEC did not have full-time employees. In this way it prevented continuous operation of this institution and fulfillment of its obligations stipulated by the Action Plan. Just to remind, the State Election Commission is only body that did not fulfill any of the measures envisaged by the Innovated Action Plan for the fight against corruption and organized crime.
The third problem in the work of the Commission is lack of transparency in the allocation of funds for the work of the Commission. In the period between elections this funds are around € 150 per member, while during the elections the Commission assigns itself benefits which amount up to € 7,000.
Considering these facts, it is impossible to support the whole text of the Strategy and to not question not only our expertise, but also the ability of logical thinking in general.
After the next reviewing of the draft Strategy by the Government and the fourth version of this document, we will determine whether we accept the rest of the text, or we point out that the entire document is completely unacceptable by the representatives of civil society.
