The Center for Civic Education (CGO) announced today that the election of Ivan Medojević as director of the Agency for the Protection of Personal Data and Free Access to Information (AZLP) was not carried out in accordance with the Law on the Protection of Personal Data, which clearly prescribes the conditions for appointment to this position and asks the AZLP Council to cancel this election and announce a new competition.
"The Law on the Protection of Personal Data in Articles 53 and 54 prescribes conditions and restrictions for the appointment of members of the Council of the Agency. Among the restrictions, in Article 54, it is clearly stated that a person who "3) appointed or appointed by the Government of Montenegro". At the 142nd session, on November 7, 2019, the Government of Montenegro appointed Ivana Medojević as acting general director of the Directorate for Inspection Affairs and Licensing in the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism (MORT), which is also mentioned in the summary informed the public about the content of the session through a press release from the same session," the statement of the CGE signed by Tamara Milaš, coordinator of the Human Rights program, points out.
In the statement of the CGO, it is added that the appointment of Medojević to a high position within the executive power by the Government of Montenegro, regardless of the fact that it is an acting position, is undoubtedly his appointment or appointment, and therefore, paragraph 3) of Article 54 of the Law on Data Protection has been violated. about personality during his election to the position of director of AZLP.
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"Furthermore, the provisions of Article 49 paragraph 2 of the same Law prescribe that the Agency is autonomous and independent in its work, and the precondition for achieving independence is that persons who are undoubtedly independent of the executive power are appointed to the leading positions in AZLP. The fact is that as a member of the Cabinet of this Ministry, Medojević applied for the position of AZLP director, and that he was in that position on the day when the AZLP Council decided by a majority of votes to support his candidacy on April 3, 2020. Therefore, it is obvious that in at the time of the election, Medojević was not independent of the executive branch and that his election is contrary to the provisions of Article 54, paragraph 3 of the Law on the Protection of Personal Data," the CGE said.
The announcement also states that Medojević himself, during his transition from the position of state prosecutor to the position of director of the directorate in MORT, submitted two reports to the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption - one regarding the termination of the position of state prosecutor, and the other regarding his appointment to the position in MORT - in.
"From the above, it undoubtedly follows that Medojević is aware that at the time of his election as director of AZLP, he was an official of the Government of Montenegro. This is also supported by the provision of Article 61, paragraph 5 of the Law on Civil Servants and Employees, which prescribes that during the performance of duties, the acting has the authority, rights, obligations and responsibilities of the head of the administrative body, i.e. the service or the person who performs the tasks of the senior management staff. the importance of the future work of the Agency for the Protection of Personal Data and free access to information, as well as the need for personnel changes in this institution, and based on the previous work of State Prosecutor Ivan Medojević, he believed that Mr. Medojević can successfully meet all the obligations facing this important institution in the coming period." It is unclear whether the members of the Council consciously ignored the fact that Medojević did not apply for that position from the position of state prosecutor but from the position of Deputy Director General of the Directorate for Inspection Affairs and Licensing in the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism of the Government of Montenegro, or whether this fact, although publicly widely available, it was not known. Finally, during the submission of the documentation, Medojević himself had to submit a statement under criminal and material liability that there are no obstacles to his appointment in accordance with the Law," the CGE statement reads.
CGO asks the members of the Council if Medojević submitted such a statement and if there is information in his documentation about the appointment by the Government.
"Appreciating all of the above, and especially the already seriously shaken credibility of the Agency for the Protection of Personal Data and Free Access to Information, we call on the Council to urgently annul the election of Medojević and to announce a new competition, and to apply the Law consistently and not in a situation where the public's focus is on the pandemic of the new corona virus violates the Law", concludes the CGO statement.
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