Presidents of municipalities could be MPs at the same time, because until recently valid regulations did not specify what local government bodies were and what local self-government bodies were.
This results from the recent decisions of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (ASK), which was sent to the deputies in the state parliament and the leaders of Bar and Nikšić. Dušan Raičević i Marko Kovačević ordered that they "relinquish" one of the functions, because they are incompatible according to the recently adopted law, in which a distinction is made between local government bodies and local self-government.
In the recently valid Law on Prevention of Corruption, which was passed in 2017 (during the rule of the Democratic Party of Socialists) and on the basis of which municipal presidents could also be members of parliament, there was no mention of local self-government bodies. It was written that "a public official who performs duties in the state administration and local administration bodies cannot perform the function of deputy and councilor".
In the newly adopted regulation, the Law on Prevention of Corruption (the word "prevention" no longer has the letter "j"), local self-government is also mentioned. It was stated that "an official who performs tasks in the state administration and local administration and local self-government bodies cannot perform the function of a deputy".
Lawyers interviewed by "Vijesti" explain that local self-government is the municipality, the capital or the capital, that the local self-government bodies are the president of the municipality and the municipal assembly, and that the local government bodies are secretariats, agencies, municipal administrations...
The Ministry of Public Administration (MJU) explained to "Vijesta" the difference between these categories, pointing to the provisions of the Constitution of Montenegro and the Law on Local Self-Government.
"The provision of Article 114 of the Constitution of Montenegro stipulates that the basic form of local self-government is the municipality, while the provision of Article 115 paragraph 2 stipulates that the bodies of the municipality are the assembly and the president," said the acting general director of the Directorate for Local Self-Government in the Ministry of Local Government to "Vijesta" , Nina Blažić.
She also said that the provisions of the Law on Local Self-Government (Article 69) stipulate that "local government bodies (secretariats, administrations and directorates) are formed to carry out the tasks of local government, that for the performance of professional and other tasks within the competence of the chief administrator and chief of the city architect, as well as joint professional and other jobs for the needs of the municipality, professional services can be formed, and special services should be formed to carry out specific tasks of the local administration (communal police service, protection and rescue service and other services, in accordance with the law)".
This should mean that, according to the recently valid law, the functions of the president of the municipality and the deputy were not incompatible, because the head of the municipality was not an organ of local administration, but of local self-government - a category introduced in the new regulation.
ASK assessed this in September of last year, announcing that Raičević and the then deputies and presidents of the municipalities of Kolašin and Tuzi Vladimir Martinovic i Nick Djelosaj they did not violate the provisions of the valid act at that time. The institution he heads Jelena Perović, she stated at the time that these are not incompatible functions, because the jobs performed by the mayor do not belong to the jobs performed in the state administration (ministries and state administration bodies), "nor local administration bodies (consisting of secretariats, administrations and directorates), according to the Law on Local Self-Government, they belong to the local self-government body".
"... Because according to Article 2 of the Law on Local Self-Government, "local self-government is realized in the municipality as a unit of local self-government, while Articles 35 and 55 of the same law prescribe that the municipal bodies are the assembly and the president of the municipality, as the executive body of the municipality", they said. were then from ASK.
At the end of June, that institution informed Raičević that, according to the newly adopted law, he would have to choose one of two functions, and he asked for a legal interpretation on whether this decision can be made retroactively, since the KAS determined in September of last year that there is no conflict of interests.
In the new interpretation, the KAS reminds the article of the new law, which mentions local self-government bodies, and adds that "the appointee is obliged to resign from public office within 30 days of receiving the notification" from the Agency and inform the Agency about the above. The opinion was signed by the director of KAS, who is under house arrest because the Special State Prosecutor's Office suspects her of abuse of official position.
The Agency sent the same opinion to Kovačević, who was also informed earlier that the new law has entered into force and that he will have to resign from one of his positions. In the opinion dated August 1, which ASK published on its website, it is written that Kovačević addressed them on July 25 and stated that he was elected as the president of Nikšić Municipality on May 10, 2021, and as a deputy on April 16 of this year, "and that it follows that the Law does not apply to him in terms of the obligation to resign from one of the functions at this time, but to cases of incompatibility of functions after the entry into force of the new Law".
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