Although the authorities said at the beginning of April that there was no room for panic and that the Alimony Fund would soon resume payments, the parents have not received money for months, nor do they know when they would be able to exercise their legal rights.
In the "Parents" Association, they claim that citizens contact them every day to find out if there is anything new regarding the application of the law, but also to tell them what kind of problems they are in. President of the Association Kristina Mihailović she said that these days they will officially request that changes to the law be urgently included in the procedure, as well as that they expect this to happen at the first following session of the Assembly.
While they are waiting for the deputies to sit down and vote on changes to the law again, dozens of parents do not receive alimony from the fund even on the basis of the "old" Law on Temporary Child Support, which is still formally in force. Over 200 parents, who submitted requests to centers for social work, did not even receive a decision recognizing their rights.
Payments from the Alimony Fund, which was established on November 1 last year, were suspended at the end of March, and the Ministry of Finance said that they will not be until the announced changes to the Law on Temporary Child Support. This was done after the Protector of Property and Legal Interests contested the payments of alimony, which were related to the retroactive recognition of rights.
Head of the Alimony Fund Milovan Vujović he told parents at the beginning of April that there is no room for panic due to the temporary suspension of temporary child support payments, because they will be properly continued as soon as the amendments to the Law are adopted, "which is expected already these days".
The Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare does not keep records, that is, there is no information on how many children are beneficiaries of alimony, but also how many parents do not fulfill this obligation. According to data from the non-governmental sector, between 60 and 70 percent of parents do not pay alimony, and failure to provide maintenance is a criminal offense in Montenegro.
Deputies adopted the law in April, but the then president Milo Djukanovic he did not sign the decree, because he dissolved the Assembly in March.
The new president Jakov Milatovic informed the Assembly in June that he could not sign the previously adopted laws, including the new Law on Temporary Maintenance, because his predecessor had not done so within the time frame stipulated by the Constitution.
Deputies will therefore re-approve the amended law.
In the "Parents" Association, they believe that political entanglements and fights have led to the fact that the already discriminated category of the population becomes additionally discriminated against, because it cannot realize the right that the state has made possible for it.
"What happened? The law began to be applied, with countless problems, then they solved 'difficulties in progress' and after a few months realized that they were going to change the law, so they made a decision, although it is not clear how it can be decided by anyone's decision that the law is not applies, which is still in force. Amendments were prepared, sent to the parliament, adopted, but the then president refused to sign them due to political overreach. We are getting a new president and when we ask him if he will sign the changes to the Law, he explains that he cannot, because all the deadlines for that have expired, so they must return to the parliament for a new decision. And that's... nobody knows when. Because of all that, all of this can only be commented on as outrageous," Mihailović assessed.
In the report on the work of the Alimony Fund for the past month, it is stated that the reason for the suspension of payment is the imprecise determination of Article 8 paragraph 1 of the Law on Temporary Child Support, which affected the social work centers to recognize the right for the period before the application of the law, i.e. retroactively.
"Precisely because of the retroactive recognition of rights, the Protector of Property and Legal Interests contested the payments before the Administrative Court with lawsuits from February," the report states.
It also says that the payments will continue when the changes to the law come into force, that all decisions will be canceled and new ones will be made, but also that the right will be recognized from the day of submission to the centers for social work.
According to the law, children in the territory of Montenegro have the right to temporary support, and the condition for this is that the debtor of support, i.e. the parent who does not pay alimony, according to the court verdict, for two continuous months in full, partially does not fulfill this obligation or does so irregularly. Under partial fulfillment of the obligation, it is considered that the maintenance debtor pays a smaller amount than that determined by the judgment or court settlement.
The law stipulates that irregular fulfillment of the obligation is considered when the obligee owes at least two monthly alimony in the last 12 months before submitting the request. With the changes in the law, it will not be possible to pay alimony for the previous period, which will serve only as evidence for exercising rights.
The right to temporary maintenance, according to the Law, lasts until the debtor fully begins to fulfill the obligation determined by the judgment, and at the latest until the child reaches the age of 18. Exceptions are children who, after coming of age, are unable to work due to illness, physical or mental defects, do not have enough means to support themselves or cannot obtain them from existing assets.
The Government previously announced that it will provide the necessary funds for the Alimony Fund, which will be financed from the budget, funds obtained from the sale of permanently confiscated property benefits acquired through criminal activity, donations, payments by companies based on insurance contracts, as well as income from games of chance. ...
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