"You shouldn't regret doing the right things in life, no matter how hard it is, because what's a life without a face and a bowed head". Patricija Pobrić, in an interview for the Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN-CG), looks at the calvary she is going through in this way because she pointed out to MP Mladen Bojanić in 2016 that two party meetings of the Social Democrats (SD) in the Ramada Hotel, where was a manager, paid by the Directorate for Railways with money from the state budget.
The Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (ASK) did not protect Pobrić from the resulting persecution, with the assessment that she was not a whistleblower, but a whistleblower's assistant, because she did not go directly to them, but shared her findings with the deputy. Even today, ASK says that they did not make a mistake and blame everything on the shortcomings of the Law on Prevention of Corruption, which did not provide for protection for related parties, which Pobrić allegedly would have.
"The Agency as a preventive body has enough competences, I think there is no need to change the law, except in the sense of providing protection for a related party, which is the only necessity in our opinion", the head of the Whistleblower Reception Department at the Agency, Kristina Braletić, pointed out for CIN-CG .
In the last four years, after the Law entered into force, about 330 whistleblowers approached the Agency, 13 sought protection, and in only four cases did the ASK determine that it was founded.
Employees of the Railway received protection at the time Milisav Dragojević i Dragomir Minic, former head of public garages in Budva Parking Service Radomir Glendža and one professor of history and geography who wished to remain anonymous.
Dragojević and Minić pointed to numerous irregularities in the work of the Railway and the malfunctioning of trains, Glendž to fraud in the Parking Service and multimillion-dollar theft in the public garage construction project in Rafailovići, and the professor to illegal employment in the school where he worked.
Dragojević for CIN-CG points out that the Agency, but also other institutions, did not essentially protect him.
"The abuse and persecution continued even after my appeal to the Agency, the prosecutor's office, the police... Whistleblowers are completely unprotected," he concludes.
Legally, a whistleblower is anyone who submits a report on endangering the public interest that points to the existence of corruption.
Braletić explains that the Agency does not grant this status, but that those who think that they are threatened with retaliation for reporting irregularities can ask for protection from it.
The agency can recommend that certain behavior towards the whistleblower be eliminated. However, the recommendation is not binding and if it is not implemented, the ASK informs the competent authority above the one that endangers the whistleblower and finally submits a report to the Assembly. The law provides for fines from one thousand to 20 thousand euros for the legal entity, from 500 to 2.000 euros for the responsible person, and from 500 to 6.000 euros for the entrepreneur.
Few dare to report corruption
Research by the Center for the Development of Non-Governmental Organizations CRNVO shows that although 88 percent of citizens think that corruption in Montenegro today is mostly or very widespread in society, the number of those who would report it is small. Most do not know who the whistleblowers are. Two thirds of citizens do not know who to turn to for protection against retaliation. They generally do not recognize the agency as a real address. Research was conducted by field questionnaire in March 2017 and June 2019 in 17 Montenegrin cities on a sample of 1.017 and 1.024 respondents, respectively, and the trends are discouraging. Instead of increasing awareness of the importance of whistleblowing, it is even decreasing. "Most worrying is the fact that the number of those who justify not reporting corruption has tripled with the opinion that 'people have to manage somehow and survive,'" the research concludes. The number of those who think that Montenegrin society does not need whistleblowers has increased by five percent in two years, so now every fourth citizen has this opinion. The share of those who think that whistleblowers are primarily driven by their own interests is also growing. Both of these increases are recorded in the younger population - from 18 to 29 years old.
"It is worrying that only 11 percent of those who noticed irregularities reported these illegalities, and the most common reason mentioned was the fear of being punished - by losing their job or jeopardizing their security," concludes CRNVO.
Program assistant CRNVO Zorana Marković assesses that whistleblowers are not encouraged by such a system. It is necessary, she says, to work on raising public awareness of the fact that we see whistleblowers as brave people who pointed out anomalies in the system, and not as spies and the like.
Internal reporting is pointless
In the CRNVO survey, it is also pointed out that 99 percent of citizens do not know whether their employer has appointed a person to receive whistleblowers in the company. Of the remaining percentage, one in ten knows who that person is - actually one in a thousand. According to the law, the employer is obliged to designate a person who could try to solve the reported problem internally. The whistleblower, however, does not have to address that person, but directly to the Agency. The interlocutors of CIN-CG, except from KAS, assess that in the existing system it is pointless to submit an internal report. Zorana Marković explains that, according to the current legal solution, an entrepreneur can designate himself, or that in an NGO, which has three members, one of them can be in charge of the applications of his colleagues.
Director of the Network for the Affirmation of the Non-Governmental Sector (MANS) Vanja Ćalović Marković points out that it would make sense in a system where there is a corporate culture and where employees are encouraged to report irregularities.
"In practice, it only contributes to targeting the whistleblower in some way and showing the management where the accusations are coming from," she assessed.
And Pobrić believes that this person would have to be completely independent from the company, and that it makes no sense for the management to appoint an employee to do that job.
Dragojević says that he did not even think of turning to that person in Željeznica for help, because it was she who was preparing the persecution against him.
"Management appoints a person who is obedient to that position, no one can have confidence in her, because only then does the coup kill you," he said.
Braletić says that the management does not have to determine that it is someone employed in the company, although in practice, he admits, it is most often the case. "The intention was that what can be prevented and removed should be solved inside the house, and if it cannot be, to raise it to a higher level," said Braletić.
The agency knows of only four internal reports, although companies are not legally obliged to inform them about it. In the public and private sector, 884 people have been appointed to receive whistleblowers.
"We are aware that all authorities have designated persons for admission, while in the private sector this has been done in 186 cases and they have provided us with decisions. All the biggest companies have appointed these persons", she stated. For those who didn't do it - nothing to anyone, which is another legal absurdity. Misdemeanor proceedings expire in 60 days, and the Law entered into force in January 2016.
"It was a higher priority for the agency to get to those people, than to punish them. Already in March 2016, all of them were in violation, which was unrealistic to implement, and it was not even our goal," says Braletić.
Only persecution guaranteed
Vanja Ćalović Marković points out for CIN-CG that whistleblowers in Montenegro are only formally protected, while in fact they are persecuted in one way or another.
"The greater the public interest on which they whistle and the greater the corruption, the greater the consequences for whistleblowers, because it also takes on an additional political dimension, where a message must be sent that their dirty secrets must not be leaked and that therefore whistleblowers must bear the consequences," assessed Ćalović Marković.
She reminds that journalists and civil activists, when they reported corruption, were interrogated and asked for information about sources, their mobile phones and the like were taken away, and that this is a clear message for whistleblowers at lower levels not to dare to report corruption.
"Let's say, in the case of the financial report of Prva banka, for the then Supreme State Prosecutor Ranka Carapić it was crucial to determine from whom that report was leaked, not what is in it and whether money obtained from narcotics is being laundered," Ćalović recalls. Whistleblowers, she says, would be encouraged by the clear political will of the state and the prosecutor's office, which prosecutes everyone.
"It is clear to everyone that they should go to a corrupt official or functionary to report corruption and that such people will not process it. It is also clear to them what awaits them in the Agency in the person (of the director) Sreten Radonjić which was appointed there to protect the interests of corrupt officials, as well as for the third instance - the prosecutor's office, which has so far shown that it is very ready to prosecute those who report corruption, not the corrupt," Ćalović Marković concluded.
No one sought judicial protection
ASK representative Kristina Braletić, however, claims that we cannot talk about how effective whistleblower protection is in Montenegro, when all mechanisms have not been exhausted.
"We have a cultural problem, we express resistance to any new institute. The question is whether a period of less than four years is enough to talk about efficiency", says Braletić.
There is, so far, no case of judicial protection, although the law foresees that possibility.
"Court protection might be more effective if, for example, you lost your job because of whistle-blowing. The court could return you to work as a temporary measure in the shortest possible time until the dispute is settled and determine that you must be paid your salary," says Braletić. The smaller number of requests for protection, according to her interpretation, may also mean that the others did not suffer some form of retaliation. Braletić states that the number of reports to the Agency is increasing, so in 2016 there were 56, the following 69, last year 110, and this year by November 11, more than 85 whistleblowers.
The Agency, or other bodies, most often inspected in 25 percent of the reports, determined that the public interest was endangered. Irregularities in labor relations were reported in 30 percent of cases, 20 percent related to the work of state bodies, six percent to public procurement (in the countries of the region this area is reported more), 13 percent at the local level and 15 percent to the private sector. Of the total number of reports, a third are anonymous.
The agency made more than 500 recommendations, of which, as Braletić says, 95 percent were implemented. Due to the failure to submit a report on the implementation of the Agency's recommendations, 19 procedures were initiated and fines in the amount of 9.700 euros were imposed.
Pobrić: Consequences for the rest of his life
"In addition to the stress that I and my family experienced daily due to threats and monitoring, I still suffer the consequences today, I am unemployable, I have no chance of getting a project in which the state participates in any way. The consequence will be for the rest of his life," Pobrić continues his story.
The Podgorica High Court convicted the Director of the Directorate for blowing the whistle on Pobrićeva Nebojša Obradović to three months in prison, and the Court of Appeal changed it to a suspended sentence. Obradović resigned after the verdict, but soon got a job within the same Ministry of Transport.
Pobrić says that the fact that he was the prime minister at the time is further discouraging Milo Djukanovic openly sided with the Ramada management, stating that no one wants such an employee.
Zorana Marković emphasizes that the fact that no one wants an employee like Pobrić's indicates the state of consciousness in society. "And the state body should really want her, because she protected the state budget, with the awareness that she is a person with integrity, who will be a good employee. But we have a social problem, because we are afraid of such people, probably because we know how we do business," said Marković.
And Dragojević says that despite everything he has survived, he would do it all again, but that this time he would not turn to the institutions, because he does not see the purpose.
"If there was political will to fight corruption, there would be a way to encourage whistleblowers," Dragojević is convinced.
For the EU directive, the deadline is two years
In April of this year, the European Parliament adopted the Directive, in order to harmonize the area of whistleblower protection in EU countries.
"At the EU level, whistleblower protection is provided only in certain sectors and to a different extent," it says in the reasons for adopting the directive.
Among other things, it foresees protection for persons connected with whistleblowers, as well as the strengthening of judicial protection mechanisms. It is also foreseen that companies with less than 50 employees do not have to have persons to receive whistleblowers, except for those that provide financial services or are vulnerable to money laundering and terrorist financing.
Montenegro adopted this directive in October and has two years to implement it.
In the latest report on Montenegro, the European Commission stated that the results in the protection of whistleblowers remain limited, emphasizing the further decline in the number of requests for the protection of individuals who report threats to the public interest.
Award only on paper
Former and current Budva councilors Božidar Vujičić and Stevan Džaković asked the Budva Municipality for a reward for reporting corruption in the case of the construction and rental of the TQ Plaza business center in that city. On the basis of their criminal report, the criminal group led by Svetozar Marović was convicted for this.
As the councilors submitted the application in 2013, and the Law began to be applied only in January 2016, those familiar with the proceedings before the Administrative Court say that their request could be rejected. Apart from them, it is not known that any whistleblowers asked for a reward. According to the Law, the employer can reward the whistleblower when he contributed to the prevention of harm to the public interest. The whistleblower is also entitled to a reward from the employer who made some profit from the report. If the employer refuses, the whistleblower can request it through the Administrative Court. The Agency says that the awards are not within their jurisdiction, there is no obligation to inform them about it, and that they have no information on whether anyone has been awarded at all.
ASK gets a good opinion of itself in the polls
Although he says that the ASK respects data from the civil sector, Braletić refers to his own annual research conducted through the agencies Defacto and Damar plus, which obtained different results: "In the last three years, the Agency has always been recognized first as someone to whom citizens submitted such an application". According to her, more than 70 percent of respondents in researches during the previous three years declared that the campaign led by the Agency encourages them to report corruption and to oppose it. The last one was conducted in November last year on a sample of 1.010 respondents in nine Montenegrin municipalities.
"Almost 80 percent stated that they never offered any kind of gift or money in order to exercise their legal rights, and as many as 91,6 percent of the respondents believe that it is never right to give money to a public official in order to exercise the rights that citizens are entitled to by law. they belong," Braletić told CIN-CG.
Despite these socially desirable answers, and in the survey for KAS, the largest percentage of citizens estimate that the reason they would not report corruption is a lack of confidence that the competent authorities would act on the report.
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