The Ministry of Public Administration remains committed to implementing the law, protecting the constitutional order and preserving the democratic legitimacy of local self-government bodies, and anyone who does not understand this or does not want to apply it will face legal responsibility for their actions, the ministry announced.
The Ministry, as "Vijesti" reported yesterday, assessed that the Kotor Municipal Assembly should make a decision to shorten its mandate. In the administrative supervision report on the implementation of Article 56 of the Law on Local Self-Government, they pointed out that the Municipality of Kotor was obliged to elect the Mayor no later than 30 days from the constitution of the newly elected Municipal Assembly.
On the other hand, the Mayor of the Municipality, Vladimir Jokić, said that the interpretation of the Ministry of Public Administration is contrary to the positions of the Administrative Court, the Supreme Court of Montenegro, and the European Court of Human Rights.
The Ministry announced today that in the administrative supervision findings, they provided a legally based opinion and precise guidelines for the actions of the Kotor Municipal Council in this specific legal situation.
"It is important to emphasize that this is not a precedent, nor is it a new legal position of the Ministry of Public Administration. On the contrary, the Ministry has previously, on several occasions, conducted administrative supervision over the implementation of Article 56 of the Law on Local Self-Government, which prescribes the imperative obligation to elect a mayor within 30 days of the date of the constitution of the municipal assembly. During 2023, an identical legal situation existed in several municipalities - Bar, Bijelo Polje, Budva and others - and in all of these cases the Ministry of Public Administration took the exact same legal position," the statement reads.
The Municipality of Kotor, as they said, is just one in a series of local self-government units in which consistent implementation of the law by the Municipal Assembly is necessary.
"Therefore, insinuations that legal norms are being 'interpreted with someone' in order to cause harm to third parties are not only unfounded, but also extremely harmful, and we perceive them solely as an attempt to replace legal arguments with political rhetoric at a time when legal arguments are lacking."
When it comes to the essence of the legal position of the Ministry of Public Administration, they remind that the obligation of the Municipal Assembly to elect a mayor within 30 days of its constitution is imperative. For failure to fulfill this obligation, they add, the Law on Local Self-Government prescribes the strictest sanction - shortening the mandate of the Municipal Assembly.
The finding coming from the Ministry of Public Administration, they say, aims to prevent legal uncertainty and preserve the stability of the democratic system and the local self-government system in Montenegro.
"For the sake of fully informing the public, we remind you of the basic principles of the Law on Local Self-Government. The Municipal Assembly is a representative body of local self-government, directly elected by citizens in free elections. The Mayor is an executive body, elected by the Municipal Assembly and to which he is accountable for his work."
In the specific case of the Municipality of Kotor, they remind you, the president of the local government was elected in March 2025 by the Municipal Assembly, whose mandate had expired.
"After that, the election process was completed and a new Municipal Assembly was constituted. The Mayor, elected by the Assembly whose mandate had expired, despite the clear and imperative legal norm that the Mayor must be elected within 30 days of the constitution of the new Assembly, believes that he should continue to perform his function - which violates the constitutional and legal position and role of local autonomy and self-government."
The Ministry says that a "key and inevitable question" is being raised: to which assembly is the mayor accountable for his work? "To an assembly that no longer exists. This grossly violates the basic principle of the executive branch's responsibility towards a representative body. If this untenable situation were to remain, the Kotor Municipal Assembly, elected by the will of the citizens in free elections, would be denied its constitutional and legal right, or obligation, which directly renders the electoral will of the citizens meaningless," said the public administration department.
They say that no one has the right to accept the position coming from the Kotor Municipality, because it would lead to the complete collapse of the local self-government system, relativizing the role of the Municipal Assembly, and disrupting the relationship between the representative and executive bodies.
"Moreover, accepting the position that it is not necessary to elect a mayor after the constitution of the assembly would have unforeseeable and dangerous consequences."
This, they said, would mean that the mayor of Kotor would retain his mandate even after the general local elections, which is "contrary to the concept adopted by the deputies" in July 2025, according to which they limited the mandates of municipal mayors to a maximum of 60 days from the date of confirmation of the mandates of councilors elected in the general local elections.
"Finally - in relation to the manipulations regarding the submission of the supervision findings, we clearly emphasize that the Ministry sent the findings on 5 February 2026, and indeed, with such challenges and problems - we will not deal with office business issues yet. Finally, regarding the court rulings that have been mentioned in public in recent days, we emphasize that the rulings relating to the duration of the mayor's term of office do not contain elements of the specific legal situation in the Municipality of Kotor, and therefore cannot be mechanically applied to this case," the Ministry said.
They say that they do not allow the constitutional and legal functioning of democracy to be "translated into the realm of labor disputes and the duration or extension of someone's mandate."
"The Ministry of Public Administration remains consistent in implementing the law, protecting the constitutional order and preserving the democratic legitimacy of local self-government bodies. Whoever does not understand this, or does not want to apply it, will face legal responsibility for their actions, and the work of the Ministry of Public Administration ends with this stance," the statement reads.
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