The draft decision on local communities at the level of the Capital City of Podgorica, as before, gives citizens the right to decide, but it does not clearly define the basis for exercising that right, because it is communicated differently in certain parts of the document, and in some cases it is a place of residence, and in others a place of residence some location.
This, among other things, was pointed out by the Center for Civil Liberties (CEGAS), a non-governmental organization that has been dealing with the issue of local communities for a long time. From that NGO, they believe that permanent residence should be sufficient so that citizens can directly participate in decision-making at the level of the Ministry of Health in which they live.
According to the Law on Residence and Residence Registers, residence is a place on the territory of Montenegro where a Montenegrin citizen has settled with the intention of living there permanently, and which is the center of his life activities and with which he has a permanent connection, while residence is the place and address where the Montenegrin the citizen resides temporarily.
The Center for Civil Liberties sent the Secretariat for Local Self-Government and Cooperation with Civil Society of the Capital City of Podgorica comments on the Draft Decision on the Ministry of Health, which is under public discussion.
Executive Director of CEGAS Marija Popović Kalezić she told "Vijesti" that the text of the Decision is a move, that "will is felt and we have indicators that things can be changed", but also that "work must be done on their concretization".
"And security through the full participation of citizens in decision-making in the narrowest localities, in order to ensure greater participation of citizens and security in the entire election process," she said.
Redefine the minimum number of inhabitants
According to the text of the Draft, along with the general definition that a local community "is established for a part of a settlement, a settlement or several connected settlements that represent a spatial, urban and communal entity and in which citizens are connected by common interests and needs in their everyday life", it is also foreseen that the MZ cannot to have less than 50 inhabitants.
Popović Kalezić says that this is not a good solution.
"Because we mustn't forget that a local community is made up of both a place and a community, and when citizens place that place too far from their living territory, you can hardly create the kind of connection that makes local communities exist. We must not forget rural areas, their importance and potential for growth and development, as well as the need for inclusion, regardless of their small number," she said.
To determine who lives in a MH
The legal position of local communities within the municipalities in which they are located is regulated by the Law on Local Self-Government, while decisions are made by each municipality. The Law on Local Self-Government specifies the legal institutes on which the decisions of local communities should rest - assembly of citizens, citizens' initiative, referendum, petitions, proposals and appeals.
According to the regulations, the bodies of the local community are the Council and the President of the Council. According to the Draft Decision on the Municipal Council of the Capital City of Podgorica, it is envisaged that the Council will have three members in a local community with up to 5.000 inhabitants, five members in a Municipal Community with 5.000 to 10.000 inhabitants, and seven members in a Municipal Community with over 10.000 inhabitants. The mandate of the Council lasts four years.
The President of the Council is elected directly by citizens, as well as other members of local community bodies.
"The candidate with the largest number of citizens' votes will be elected president of the local community council. The President of the Council has a deputy who is elected from among the members of the Council for a term of four years", the Draft states and adds that the right to elect and be elected to the bodies of the Ministry of Health "has a citizen who has the citizenship of Montenegro, who has reached the age of 18 , is capable of doing business and resides in the Ministry of Health, whose bodies are elected".
Residence is a prerequisite that citizens must fulfill in order to be able to propose candidates for local community bodies.
The draft also stipulates that, for the purposes of elections for members of the Council, the competent authority should obtain from the ministry a certified extract from the register of residence and residence of all adult citizens in the area of the local community where the elections are held...
CEGAS said that in direct decision-making it is important to determine who are the citizens who live in the territory of a certain local community, but that the citizens themselves must receive information about this, so that they can exercise their rights in terms of decision-making.
"The direct method of electing the bodies of the Ministry of Health existed before, but the problem of the presence of citizens was a problem that has long been known, and that it must be solved in a certain way, most often due to the lack of information and the lack of adequate lists, which refer to which local community the citizens belong to and what constitutes the main criterion for acquiring that right. For these reasons, in addition to praise for the possibility of direct decision-making, it is important to establish a list of citizens who, based on their place of residence, belong to a given local community," she said.
In order to exercise their rights, they must be informed
As she added, citizens should be informed about this "in writing, properly and on time".
"So that they know how to use their right to choose and the possibility to attend the assembly and all other forms of involvement. "When the list of potential candidates for the election of Council members is established, a longer deadline must be given for informing the citizens, in order to ensure the highest possible percentage of participation," she said.
As she added, in relation to who has the right to decide, it must be clearly defined whether it is a residence or residence.
"Because in some articles we have explicitly mentioned the place of residence, while in article 63, for the submission of the initiative for convening the Assembly, in addition to the place of residence, the place of residence is set as an option. In accordance with the European Charter on Local Self-Government, it should be considered that the category of permanent residence as a determinant should be sufficient for the possibility of direct participation of citizens in the narrowest localities," she said.
According to Popović Kalezić, the percentage for valid decision-making by the Assembly "is not harmonized when creating new local communities, in Article 20, and valid decision-making by the Assembly, in Article 62".
"The new Decision on the work of local communities must increase the transparency of the work of some local communities, so in addition to notifications via web addresses and the website of the Capital City, citizens must be delivered a written, targeted notification to their residential address. This is one of the possibilities for the low participation of citizens in the work of local communities to finally increase," she said.
As she said, contacting citizens in an immediate way must not only be related to the holding of the Chorus, but also to all other important topics that the Ministry of Health decides on.
The documentation related to the Draft Decision on the Municipal Council of the Capital City of Podgorica was published on the website podgorica.me, in the Local Community section.
The public hearing on the document lasts until August 9, until which comments and objections can be submitted in written and electronic form... The central public hearing will be held on August 5, in the building of the Assembly of the Capital City, from 10.00:XNUMX a.m.
The borders are described in text, the map is not readable
From the Capital City, in the documentation related to the Draft Decision on the Ministry of Health, along with the Draft itself, they also published an Elaborate on the boundaries of local communities, as well as a map of the area. The elaboration textually, without coordinates, along with the listed streets and buildings, describes from where to where each of the 40 local communities extends.
Thus, according to the description, MZ Gorica "starts from Novi Most, along the Ribnica river bed to the northeast to the railway line, and then follows Belgrade Street to the west, over the Gorica hill to the west, and then at a right angle and curving to the south, next to the Small Stadium of sports, including it, along Belgrade Street, then continuing along Marko Miljanova Street, south to Novi Most, as the starting point".
The map attached to the website is not legible, so it is impossible to read exactly where each local community is located and where its borders are.
Citizens want more from their MZ
Before adopting the Draft Decision on the Ministry of Health, the Capital City organized a public consultation through a survey, in which, as stated in the report, 485 citizens participated. Most of them, over 70 percent, answered that they were not familiar with the rights they can exercise in the Ministry of Health, almost 90 percent of them said that they were not informed about public hearings, polls...
Over 80 percent of those surveyed stated that they are not satisfied with the current work of their Ministry of Health. In that part, they stated that representatives of the Ministry of Health are inaccessible to them, that they are rude and exclusive, that working hours in the Ministry of Health are not respected...
The participants in the survey, according to the report of the Capital City, said that young and creative people should be engaged in the Ministry of Health, that as many citizens as possible should be encouraged to participate in the work of the Ministry of Health. Similar answers were received by "Vijesti" through a questionnaire that was implemented with the NGO CEGAS.
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