The mayor of Nikšić, Marko Kovačević (New Serbian Democracy - NSD), told "Vijesti" yesterday that he was glad that the Constitutional Court, which last week declared the decision for the municipality to celebrate the feast day of St. Basil of Ostrog unconstitutional, did not decide "that there was anything unconstitutional about it, but that procedural matters were at stake."
"We will act as the Constitutional Court has decided and we will repeat the entire procedure. After the decision of the Constitutional Court officially enters into force, by being published in the Official Gazette, and after the Municipal Assembly (MA) is constituted, we will submit an initiative again and start the procedure for further amendments to the Statute (of the Municipality). This time we trust the Government of Montenegro to give us a positive opinion," said Kovačević.
The judges of the Constitutional Court assessed that the Nikšić parliament did not make a decision in accordance with the Law on Local Self-Government, that is, that it did not obtain prior consent from the executive branch. In this way, the councilors, according to the court, violated the constitutional principle of legality. The municipal statute was amended at the end of April 2023.
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The initiative to review the constitutionality of the amendments to the Statute was submitted to the Constitutional Court by the non-governmental organization Center for Democratic Transition (CDT), which, following the institution's decision, said that they expected "the reasoning for the decision to clearly recognize that religious celebrations cannot be official holidays in a secular state."
"There are decisions that respect the essence and the real situation, and there are decisions that do not respect them. What is important to us is that the competent institutions have not assessed that it is contrary to the Constitution for a municipality or city to have fame, but rather procedural matters are at stake, so all these procedural matters will be improved in the coming period and we will have another initiative through which we will formalize what has already been formalized from the perspective of the Municipality of Nikšić," announced Kovačević.
In the disputed amendment to the Statute, Article 9a stated: “The Municipality has a feast day - Patron Saint's Day. The Municipality's feast day is May 12th - the Day of St. Basil the Wonderworker of Ostrog, the patron saint of Nikšić. The feast day is celebrated in a manner to be regulated by a special decision of the Municipal Assembly.”
“Instead of ‘celebration’, it should be ‘patron’s day’”
The initiative for institutionalization was submitted on May 12 by the former club of councilors “Democrats - We Will Not Give Nikšić - Demos”, and then Kovačević proposed that the Statute be amended. At the session held in December 2022, the councilors of the Nikšić government and opposition were unanimous in adopting the Draft on Amendments to the Statute, which provided that the Day of St. Basil of Ostrog would be the feast day of the Municipality.
"I am especially pleased that all councilors present, both from the government and the opposition, voted in favor of the Draft Statute," Kovačević wrote on his Facebook account at the time.
The decision to amend the Statute, specifying that Nikšić has a slava, was discussed at the session on 27 April 2023, after the public debate had ended. At that time, the President of the Municipal Assembly Nemanja Vuković (Democrats) said that there were no interested citizens at the public debate, nor were there any councillors from the opposition. The decision to have a slava was made at that session by councillors from the ruling coalition, while the opposition was of the opinion that the introduction of a slava discriminated against non-Orthodox citizens, that such a decision should be waited until the Constitutional Court gives its opinion on the matter, and that the word “slava” should be replaced with the phrase “patron saint's day”, which, they said, would dispel doubts and possible disputes.
"Recognizing the importance that St. Basil has for our city, and respecting the principles of secularism and the civic character of Montenegro, we proposed a series of changes to the Draft Decision that the ruling majority did not even consider. First of all, we proposed that instead of the 'city celebration', which is contrary to the secular character of both the city and the state, Nikšić should have a 'patron's day', like some European cities," Boris Muratović, head of the councilors' club "European Team for Nikšić", led by the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), told "Vijesti" yesterday.
As he stated, these changes were proposed taking into account "the heterogeneity of the Nikšić population on religious, national and other grounds."
"All with the aim of stopping further divisions and searching for a common denominator and gathering around the name and work of St. Basil of Ostrog and not violating the principle of secularism. In this sense, we considered it more appropriate for Nikšić to celebrate the patron saint's day, not the city's feast day. In order to fulfill the mission of the Montenegrin saint on the equality of all peoples, reducing tensions between supporters of different churches and faiths, we considered it necessary to accept the suggestions," said Muratović.
The authorities in Nikšić, he claims, were not interested in this, but, he says, for the sake of their political goals, they continued with their plan, regardless of the "well-intentioned warnings" of the opposition.
"As we have witnessed for four years, violating the laws and the Constitution of Montenegro is still the practice of the current authorities in Nikšić, and that is why they are making decisions one after another, and if the parliamentary majority did not obstruct the work of the prosecution, they would be prosecuted on various issues. Therefore, the decision of the Constitutional Court must certainly be respected and it is necessary to stop the legal swindling carried out by the authorities in Nikšić, and also in Montenegro," said Muratović.
“The decision was made for formal reasons”
Former councilor of the Nikšić Municipal Assembly, Jelena Marković, submitted two initiatives to the Constitutional Court to review the constitutionality of articles of the statutes of the municipalities of Nikšić and Žabljak, which establish the city's feast days as St. Basil of Ostrog and the baptismal feast day, the Day of the Transfiguration of the Lord (August 19).
"When we expected the Constitutional Court to respect European values and human rights conventions, they made a decision to repeal this unconstitutional article of the Statute (of the Municipality of Nikšić) for formal and legal reasons, that the Nikšić Municipal Assembly did not request an opinion from the Government, and not for substantive reasons, which I pointed out, because my initiative before the Constitutional Court was handled professionally and in accordance with the Constitution and European conventions on human rights and freedoms. This is not surprising, considering that the members of this court were elected based on party affiliation, not professional affiliation," Marković told "Vijesti" yesterday.
She filed an initiative to review the constitutionality of the decision to declare Nikšić a city of fame in May 2023, pointing out that the court had ruled on the same provisions in 2005 in the case of Herceg Novi.
"Although I submitted an initiative twice and protested twice in front of the Constitutional Court, asking it to simply confirm a decision made a long time ago on the same matter, they did not react to it, but instead made this decision with a great, deliberate delay after the local elections in Nikšić, thereby directly influencing the result of the elections themselves," claims Marković.
The President of the Nikšić Municipal Assembly, Vuković, stated that the Constitutional Court, according to information from the media, did not find that the decision of the Nikšić parliament on the city's glory violated the Constitution, nor that the decision threatened anyone's rights.
"The court pointed out a procedural issue - the lack of prior consent from the Government, which we, as a responsible local authority, will fully respect through a repeated decision-making procedure in accordance with the law. St. Basil of Ostrog was not proclaimed the patron saint of Nikšić by the Municipal Assembly, but by the people. We, as its legitimate representatives, have only translated that people's will into a formal act. This year, as well as in the future, Nikšić will mark its patron saint's day with dignity and pride. This tradition is deeply rooted and will be preserved as long as the city under Trebjes exists," said Vuković.
Every year on May 12th, a procession is organized in Nikšić through the streets of the city, traditionally attended by thousands of believers from the country and the surrounding area.
Jokić: That Nikšić be part of those cities that have their own patrons
During yesterday's presentation of the program of the event "Days of St. Basil of Ostrog", which has been organized in Nikšić since 1996, the archbishopric regent of Nikšić, Slobodan Boban Jokić, commented on the decision of the Constitutional Court.
"We hope that this matter will also end, that Nikšić will be part of those world cities that have their own patron saints and their own glories, such as Rome, New York and Paris. As soon as you move a little, you will see that every big city has its own glory. I returned to Corfu and there is the glory of the city of St. Spyridon, and it is in a way a national holiday. With this initiative that the Municipality of Nikšić launched with our consent, there is no separation from the civilizational trends and trends that are European and global...", he said.
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