Every year, tourist-oriented municipalities face the same problem of an insufficient number of communal police officers who will establish and maintain communal order during the tourist season, announced today from the Union of Municipalities of Montenegro.
"The law on municipal police is the only regulation in the Montenegrin legal system that ties the number of operatives (municipal police officers) to the number of municipal residents. That law limits municipalities to at least three municipal police officers and one additional one for every 5.000 inhabitants from the last census. does not take into account the seasonal fluctuation of tourists, which drastically increases the number of subjects of supervision and makes it impossible to maintain communal order in municipalities that have profiled themselves as tourist destinations," the announcement states.
The Community of Municipalities added that Budva, with a little more than 19 inhabitants according to the 2011 census, has six municipal policemen, while in 2022, according to MONSTAT data, there were 672.555 registered tourists with a total number of overnight stays of 3.152.888. .
"In this way, the maintenance of communal order in the season leads to absurdity and has a negative effect on tourism," said the Union of Municipalities.
They added that Žabljak, with about 3,5 thousand inhabitants, has three municipal police officers and 43.577 tourists with 126.440 overnight stays in the same year.
"The situation is similar in other municipalities committed to tourism," the announcement reads.
The Union of Municipalities said that the Law on Municipal Police gives municipalities the opportunity to increase the number of municipal police officers in justified cases with the consent of the Ministry of Public Administration.
"Municipalities requested this consent on several occasions, completely argumentatively but mostly unsuccessfully. Therefore, the solution to this problem in practice was sought in some forms of inter-municipal cooperation, which is highly disputed from the aspect of competence for the exercise of public powers of communal policemen who are otherwise employed in other municipalities." , said the Union of Municipalities.
They said that for all these reasons, they initiated the amendment of the Law on Municipal Police by deleting the limit in relation to the number of municipal policemen, because, as they add, in addition to all the above, it violates the autonomy of municipalities and violates the principle of their equality.
Initiated adoption of the Law on Public Cemeteries and Burials
The Union of Municipalities announced that Montenegro does not have a special law that would regulate numerous issues related to burial.
"Even though the law regulating communal activities puts that issue under the jurisdiction of municipalities, there are many very delicate relationships that would have to be regulated separately. Cemeteries are local goods in general use at the disposal of the municipality and which are available to everyone under equal conditions. As such , in no case can they be in private property, as it is expressly prescribed by the Law on State Property," the announcement reads.
The Community of Municipalities states that, however, in practice, cases of undefined or insufficiently defined burial rights in rural and suburban cemeteries that are not managed by municipal companies are relatively frequent and very disturbing for both the family and the public, which, as they point out, often results in procedures that are extremely painful for all participants.
"There are also cases of questionable health aspects of burial, conditions for transporting the remains of Montenegrin citizens who died outside of Montenegro, exhumation, transfer of remains, etc. Particularly delicate issues are the charging of burial places in rural and suburban cemeteries, their maintenance, the maintenance of chapels that are most often built with self-contribution or donations, etc. For all these reasons, the Union of Municipalities of Montenegro sent the initiative to the Government of Montenegro for the adoption of a special law on public cemeteries and burials," said the Union of Municipalities.
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