In addition to more than one million euros in compensation paid in the cases of those who were on the lists for self-isolation at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the Ministry of Finance's delay in payments cost another 100.000 euros.
If the practice of delay continues, the amount could increase by hundreds of thousands of euros.
Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN-CG) at the beginning of August in the office of the Protector of Property and Legal Interests reviewed at least 500 cases in which payments were delayed. This accounts for at least half of the settlements concluded between the state and citizens up to that time.
One of the attorneys said that in the cases of all his clients, he was forced to hire a public bailiff because the state did not respect the prescribed deadline of 15 days. Some other attorneys have the same experience.
The Ministry told CIN-CG that the expenses belonging to public executors and other fees "amount from five to eight percent" of the 1,2 million euros paid.
"Regarding the largest number of decisions, properly prepared documentation was not forwarded to the Ministry in a timely manner... Proper documentation was not submitted, because the sentence did not contain the number of transaction accounts of natural persons, the bank to which the payment transaction should be sent, as well as data on execution deadlines payments on this basis", said the finance department about the reasons for the delay.
The Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution is the institution before which settlement was reached in these cases. People who were in self-isolation during that period were agreed to pay 300 euros in compensation for the violation of personal rights and in the name of attorney's fees, the amount depending on the number of procedural actions, usually 200 euros, the Center explained to CIN-CG. One of the conditions was that the compensation be paid within 15 days from the date of confirmation of the settlement before the court.
The Center would then inform the institution of the Protector that the court had confirmed the decision, which would then be forwarded to the Ministry of Finance for payment.
Protector of property and legal interests Bojana Cirovic she told CIN-CG that that institution "properly delivered each settlement with all the necessary data, such as registry numbers and giro account numbers, on the same day it was concluded".
"While the situation was the same with judgments based on confessions, the Ministry also had sufficient time (at least 15 days, and in some cases up to 30) to request missing data, which was not done in any case. Therefore, the protector submitted to the Ministry a document suitable for execution that clearly legitimized the creditor of the obligation, and if the department considered that some more information was needed, there was plenty of time to contact the protector for delivery, i.e. obtaining the data. We have not received a single such address from the Ministry", she states.
He notes that the goal of the Government's conclusion was to make the costs as low as possible and that there is certainly responsibility eventually as to why their settlements were not acted upon.
"If we acted properly and respected the conclusion, the other authorities should act in the same way," she said, adding that they have no insight into how and in what way the Ministry of Finance acts.
These delays started during the mandate Milojko Spajić, who was the Minister of Finance until the end of April.
Spajić did not answer the questions addressed to the political movement "Evropa sad", of which he is the president.
Economic analyst Mirza Muleskovic he told CIN-CG that "in this way we have come to a situation where we are paying much more expensively for the costs of wrong decisions from the past".
"Which, of course, is not good for the budget of Montenegro, but on the other hand, it also sends a very bad image of how decision-makers treat citizens' money," Mulešković said.
Constitutional ruling, no personal responsibility
Just a few days after the first cases of corona were registered in Montenegro, the Government Duško Marković decided on March 21, 2020, to start posting the names of people who were in self-isolation during that period on their website.
The government did this based on the opinion of the Council of the Agency for the Protection of Personal Data. According to the minutes of the session held on Saturday in the afternoon, the only item on the agenda was the adoption of an opinion, to which the body responded positively the same evening.
This decision contributed to the stigmatization of people who were thought to have been in contact with the virus. The coronavirus pandemic is also accompanied by a huge amount of false and misleading information, including information about the origin of the virus itself, from initial treatment to vaccination...
In July of the same year, on the initiative of the non-governmental organization Građanska aljansa (GA), the Constitutional Court annulled the decision, which will be the introduction to the first verdict in this case and then the Government's decision to reach a settlement with 2.720 citizens and pay them 300 euros each.
The United Nations sent a letter to the authorities and in four paragraphs expressed concern about the level of violation of human rights, that is, the right to privacy.
When asked who should be responsible for the violation of human rights, as well as the large financial damage, the deputy director of GA Amina Murić she told CIN-CG that "it should be borne by the creators of policies and the environment in a society where there is no individual responsibility, regardless of function and position in the system of state administration".
"Exactly the irresponsible attitude, not only in this, but also in numerous other examples, shows that citizens will pay for other people's mistakes until individual responsibility is established. "Certainly, we must look for those specifically responsible among those who made this decision, namely the National Coordinating Body (NKT), which made the aforementioned decision without a legal basis, as well as the Agency that approved it," she said.
At the end of last year, the Parliament of Montenegro dismissed the signatories of the controversial opinion, the president and the member of the Council of the Agency Sreten Radonjić i Bojan Obrenović.
When asked if he felt responsible for the resulting violation of rights and financial damage, Radonjić told CIN-CG that the opinion of that body "is not a binding legal act, and regardless of that, he would always put the protection of people's health before the protection of personal data, and everything in accordance with international standards".
"In this sense, I refer you to the conventions of the Council of Europe (108 and 108 plus), where it is precisely specified when the protection of people's health takes priority over personal data. The National Coordination Body informed the Agency that milder measures, such as announcements and public warnings, did not yield results. The agency did not have personal data, nor did it publish them, and therefore it has no responsibility, as prescribed by law," said Radonjić, emphasizing that he is proceeding before the court due to the decision to dismiss him.
Obrenović did not answer the number known to the editorial office. According to our information, after his dismissal, he asked the parliamentary authorities to pay him a one-year official allowance.
The then President and Deputy Prime Minister Duško Marković i did not answer the questions about responsibility Milutin Simovic which was the president of NKT.
Earlier as a guest on the show "Nachisto" on TV Vijesti, the former prime minister said that he was proud of everything that the government he led had done when it came to dealing with the pandemic, but also that he was sorry for the violations of rights in this case.
"But, believe me, it is a smaller price than the one we pay today when a hundred people die in just 7 days... Today in Montenegro, one life is more important than any other weakness that may appear, a lack of defense of that life", Marković said, among other things, then.
The only one who was against giving consent in March 2020 is a member of the Council Muhammad Gjokaj, who was not at the session in question. Gjokaj then said that the opinion was "legally unsustainable and unfounded" and that it would result in a large number of lawsuits.
When it comes to responsibility, he believes that two members of the Council should have resigned due to a disputed opinion, and the responsible persons in the NKT should have been dismissed.
The Government's decision to pay 300 euros each to all persons whose names were published while they were in self-isolation is, in his opinion, small and should be many times greater in relation to the degree of threat due to the violation of the law on the protection of personal data by the state.
"I understand the economic situation in which Montenegro is currently, but if this had happened in any country of the European Union, where the General Regulation on the Protection of Personal Data (GDPR) is in force, the compensation would have been hundreds of thousands of euros or millions. The GDPR prescribes a penalty for violating the right to privacy of natural persons up to 20 million or four percent of the total gross income of the legal entity, depending on which is greater," he explained.
He added that for the year 2020 alone, 270 million euros were paid in the EU due to the violation of the right to privacy in accordance with the provisions of the GDPR. France imposed one fine on Google in the amount of 50 million euros, while, for example, Italy imposed fines under the GDPR in the amount of 70 million euros.
When asked about the engagement of public prosecutors, Gjokaj said that it is expected that "lawyers use the excuse when the state is irresponsible, on the basis of which they earn a good income."
Cases had to go through the executor
Therefore, at the end of December, the Government gave consent to the conclusion of the settlement in the proceedings for the compensation of non-material damage to the persons on the lists. The Government then announced that the institution of the Protector of Property and Legal Interests had been approved to conclude a settlement with 2.720 persons.
In the proposal for granting consent for the conclusion of settlements, which is available on the Government's website, the Protector said that it is necessary to find a way to voluntarily act on them in the event of the conclusion of court settlements and pay out funds "for the reason that in in the case of voluntary payment of the amount that would be determined by court settlement, the costs of the execution procedure are avoided".
The letter states that 2.720 euros would be spent on settlement with 300 people in the amount of 816.000 euros each, that in addition court costs are calculated and "in the case of enforcement, which amounts to about 200 euros per case, a figure of 544.000 euros is obtained." .
It is indicated that the previously mentioned sums may vary, but not in any drastic amount, whereby the protector will insist that in each case, the giro account of the plaintiff, possibly the attorney, must be included in the settlements, so that within 15 days from the conclusion of the settlement paid the amount and thus prevented enforcement.
One representative told CIN-CG that the agreed deadline was never respected.
"Never once did they pay within the legal deadline, neither according to the court settlements, nor according to the ones concluded before the Center. From talking to my colleagues, I heard that it is the same with them," he said.
By the end of August, more than 1.000 settlements had been reached in the Center, and 335 were still pending.
The legal deadline is set at 15 days, and the decision shows that the proxies would have to wait from a few days to a few weeks before contacting the public bailiffs.
The Ministry also pointed out that it is necessary to inform citizens that payments from public money flows can be made with properly submitted and complete documentation, while appealing that court judgments be submitted with the necessary data on the basis of which payments can be made from the main account of the state treasury .
They promised household management, but it is not implemented
Although he points out that he understands why the Government made this decision at that moment, economic analyst Mirza Mulešković states that the decision due to rashness or ignorance caused major problems in reality, because it was not harmonized with other legal norms.
According to him, it could have been expected, after all the announcements of the executive power, that the mistakes made earlier during the pandemic would not be repeated, that is, that we would avoid additional payments and costs.
"This was expected precisely because of the announcement of household management of public finances and concern for every wasted euro from the budget, because we are in a delicate situation. This kind of behavior does not apply this practice," he told CIN-CG.
After that, the situation we have in the last period with the delay in the payment of funds within the legal term, further complicates and makes the entire situation problematic.
Mulešković is of the opinion that the delay in the payment of funds can only be explained through three aspects: the lack of funds for payment, the sluggishness of the administration during payments and the lack of an adequate base of all the state's debts as a matter of urgency in order to avoid these situations.
"Since the public has been hearing for the last few months that we treat all expenses in a domestic manner, this is a big problem, and such practices must be stopped in order to rationalize unnecessary public spending. Because this money could have been invested in certain development projects or could have been directed to social benefits for vulnerable categories, which are particularly affected by inflation and the crisis that is being felt", he said, adding that he hopes that there is control in the public finance system. and the basis according to which such things are paid according to urgency.
Citizens tried to collect more than once
Protector Bojana Ćirović also said that there were several attempts at abuse, some of which ended up before the prosecution.
"It used to be that the lawyer started to represent the party, and the party gave another lawyer a power of attorney. It was that they even charged themselves. We have initiated proceedings to return it as unjust enrichment. A criminal complaint was even filed in Bijelo Polje for such a situation against a lawyer, but we later found out that it was not the lawyer's fault, but that the party simply gave power of attorney to two lawyers, with one of whom the settlement was concluded, but he did not start the execution when he heard that the latter had already performed. So we are going to cancel it. There was that. Somewhere through ignorance, somewhere maybe there was an intention. But let the prosecution appreciate it. From our side, we forwarded it all to where it should be," she said.
She added that they also contributed to this through the application of the computer system they use, that is, entering data on cases.
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