The deadline for submitting additional proposals to the Draft Law on Free Access to Information expired yesterday, and the civil sector and journalists say that they remain of the opinion that the time of the coronavirus epidemic is not the time for consultations with the Ministry of Public Administration on such an important regulation. They also point out that they stand by the previously submitted suggestions, first of all the part that refers to the obligation of political parties to inform the public about their funding.
Suzana Pribilović's department invited previously interested parties to additional consultations regarding the Draft Law on SPI. The civil sector and part of the media rejected it, judging that the time of the epidemic is not the time to counter arguments in a quality way.
The Director of the Research Center of MANS, Dejan Milovac, told "Vijesta" that, instead of significantly improving the legal framework and practice in access to information, which has been criticized by the European Commission for years, the Government of Montenegro is now trying to introduce additional restrictions, due to which citizens have even less data on the work of state institutions.
"This is how the changes and additions to the Law on SPI, which are currently under public discussion, can be briefly characterized. "I believe that it is by no means a coincidence that the government's decision to insist on the further processing of changes to this law at the time of the global coronavirus pandemic and in an atmosphere of general uncertainty and reduced public attention for all other topics," says Milovac.
The Ministry of Public Administration (MJU) previously announced that many of the suggestions previously submitted by the civil sector had already been adopted. "The proposed changes enable state bodies to use new mechanisms to hide information that by their nature must be public documents, which will further weaken civil control of their work and make them more open to law violations and corruption.
Thus, in the latest amendments, it is proposed to abolish the obligation of political parties to publish information about their finances, in a year when new parliamentary elections await us. As this law was one of the key tools for uncovering political corruption and abuses during election campaigns, it is not difficult to conclude why NGOs and investigative journalists are trying to take such a powerful tool out of their hands this year," says Milovac.
Tea Gorjanc Prelević from Action for Human Rights recalls that non-governmental organizations and journalists wrote to Prime Minister Duško Marković and asked that the debate on the Draft Law be postponed, but that they did not receive an answer.
"The MJU only partially accepted to publish all the opinions of foreign experts on the Draft Law by now publishing on its website the opinion of the SIGMA agency, in English, which was sent to the Government in December, and the letter "Access to Info Europe", which was sent to it in September last year. However, the recommendations of the European Commission were not published, nor was the opinion of the EC that all their recommendations were accepted, as the department claims," said Gorjanc Prelevic.
He also says that the civil sector stands by the proposals that, as a coalition of NGOs, they submitted to the Government a long time ago, but which were not accepted.
"And we will not send anything beyond that, because we believe that holding a discussion in this time of isolation is pointless. NGOs insist that the SPI Law be fully harmonized with European standards because it is one of the most important laws for human rights and democracy. It makes it possible to get access to information that no one brags about, and which is very important for forming an attitude about political actors in the upcoming elections", concluded Gorjanc-Prelević.
Political parties have a free hand for corruption
Milovac warns that most of the corruption scandals discovered so far, starting with suspicious donations at Vreli Ribnički, all the way to embezzlement of social assistance, "were discovered precisely thanks to the obligation for political parties to publish their finances because they are predominantly financed from the state budget."
"By canceling that obligation, political parties are given a free hand to continue with bad practices even more confidently, because only institutions that have not yet been "celebrated" in uncovering political corruption will have information about their work," said Milovac.
He adds that the draft law does not prescribe what can be classified as business or tax secrets and under what conditions data exchanged with other countries or international organizations can be hidden...
"At the same time, courts and prosecutor's offices are allowed to hide all information about court proceedings and investigations," says Milovac. He reminds that the Ministry of Justice ignored the request to postpone the debate on the regulation, and that the civil sector and journalists did not receive an answer from Prime Minister Marković either.
"There is no doubt that this is a case of truly shameless opportunism, because the persistence of the Ministry of Justice and the Government cannot be characterized otherwise, that in a situation when people are locked in their homes and when we expect the peak of the epidemic in the country, they organize a public debate on such an important regulation that will significantly influence future reforms, especially anti-corruption ones", Milovac assessed and reminded that the demands of the civil sector and journalists were supported by international organizations - "Transaparency International", "Access Info Europe" and the global network of investigative media centers - OCCRP.
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