Head of Parliament Andrija Mandic (New Serbian Democracy) asked the Research Center of the Assembly in mid-July to prepare a paper for him on the topic "Comparative practice of exercising the right to dual citizenship" for the purpose, as he stated, of the bill.
This is shown by the data on the requests for works sent to the Research Center of the Legislative Chamber since the beginning of its current convocation, which was published yesterday by the Institute of Alternatives (IA).
Mandić, as can be seen in the document provided to the media by that non-governmental organization, stated in the description of the request that "the evolution of dual citizenship is visible both on a theoretical level, in the constitution of the right to dual citizenship, and in certain international legal instruments (the European Convention on Nationality of the Council of Europe ), but also in the field of national legislation of the vast majority of European Union (EU) member states".
He requested from the Research Center an analysis of the Montenegrin normative framework, the realization of the right to dual citizenship, as well as comparative practice. He stated that the work should be in the form of a comparative review, study and review of statistical data.
In the middle of the year, the representatives of the pro-Serbian bloc submitted requests for the amendment of the Law on Montenegrin Citizenship, i.e. the introduction of dual citizenship with Serbia, to the Prime Minister. Milojko Spajić.
For the leader of the Democratic People's Party (DNP) Milan Knežević it is one of the conditions for supporting Spajić's cabinet. In June, Knežević said in the program "Načisto" on TV "Vijesti" that regarding the issue of dual citizenship, there are "modalities to amend the Constitution" and that they can be implemented if there is a readiness for it in the parliament.
"Dual citizenship is regulated through the adoption of the Government Regulation for an interstate agreement, and then the Law on Citizenship is harmonized with that agreement. No referendum, Constitution, or anything is needed for that," Knežević said at the time.
Mandic also said that dual citizenship with Serbia should be introduced. At the end of last year, he announced that, at the collegium in the parliament, he would initiate a dialogue on the amendment of the Law on Montenegrin Statehood, but this has not happened to date.
That act was adopted in 2008 and is restrictive regarding dual citizenship. According to it, a person, in addition to the Montenegrin citizenship, can have the citizenship of another country if he acquired it before the declaration of independence of Montenegro on June 3, 2006, or if there is a bilateral agreement with the other country. Montenegro does not have such an agreement with Serbia.
Mandic has both Montenegrin and Serbian citizenship, he does not want to say when he got the Serbian one, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs has not yet determined whether he acquired it legally or not.
Certain lawyers and parties criticized Knežević's and Mandić's idea, assessing that the introduction of dual citizenship with Serbia could lead to abuse of the residence institute, and thus to the desired election results, possibly in a new referendum on the country's status.
The head of the Government Spajić said a few days after Knežević's speech that citizens who get Montenegrin citizenship through changes to the law of the same name, will have to spend more than six months every year in the country and only get the right to vote after ten years. He justified the changes in the law by saying that, according to the current provisions of that act, "Montenegro renounces its children."
A few hours after that statement and the stormy reactions of part of the public, Spajić's cabinet came out with a "clarification" that changes to the Law on Montenegrin Citizenship will be made only after all protective legal mechanisms have been provided, and that constitutional changes are a prerequisite for such solutions.
IA states that MPs rarely or never turn to the analytical units available to them within the parliament for help in the preparation of bills.
"Since the beginning of the 28th convocation, only half of the parliamentary clubs, that is, their representatives in the Assembly, have turned to the Parliamentary Institute - the Research Center of the Assembly, with a request for a research paper. The research center has so far received 24 requests, of which only seven related to the preparation of the draft law, and the rest aimed at preparing the discussion", they said in the announcement.
The largest number of requests came from the group of representatives of the Movement Europe now (PES) - 13. The parliamentary group of the Socialist People's Party and CIVIS submitted four requests, the Democrats two, the New Serbian Democracy three, while the Bosniak Party club and the Special Group of Representatives submitted one request each.
"Out of a total of 12, as many as six clubs of deputies have not addressed the Research Center since the beginning of the work of the 28th convocation: the Democratic Party of Socialists, the Club of Deputies of the Democratic Union of Albanians and the Croatian Civic Initiative, the Albanian Forum, the Social Democrats of Montenegro, the Citizens' Movement URA and the Democratic People's Party" , said from IA.
Analyzes on the election of constitutional judges, illegal assets, inflation...
In addition to the issue of dual citizenship, for the purposes of the proposed law, Mandić requested from the Research Center a comparative review of the position of special education teachers and speech therapists in the states of the region and EU countries.
Democrat MP Nikola Rovčanin asked for analysis and studies on the experiences of EU countries and the region in connection with the advertising of games of chance in the media, and the head of the PES parliamentary club Vasilije Čarapić was interested in the resolution on the condemnation of Israel's crimes in Palestine, i.e. how many member countries EU in its parliaments supported the same or similar.
The Vice President of the Assembly Boris Pejović (PES) requested data on the existence of friendship groups with Montenegro or with the countries of the Western Balkans in the current convocations of the parliaments of other countries, as well as the comparative inflation rates in the EU member states and the Western Balkans in the previous three years, while his party colleague Miodrag Laković demanded comparative practice for legal solutions for illegally acquired property for which no criminal proceedings are conducted.
Member of the Special Club Jevrosima Pejović asked for an analysis of the EU and the legislation of the countries of the region in the part of the election of judges of the Constitutional Court, and member of the PES Darko Dragović asked for a comparative analysis of the laws on forests in Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia.
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