The Center for Civic Education (CCE) called on the Montenegrin Parliament to more effectively promote digital tools in affirming citizens' direct address to the legislative branch, including e-petitions and electronic asking of questions to MPs.
The NGO recalled that the parliamentary e-petition portal began operating in 2023 to make the Parliament more open to citizens.
Sara Čabarkapa, coordinator of the Active Citizenship program, said that the Parliament announced at the time that citizens would be able to "easily use modern technologies to raise issues in legislative activity, influencing the process of creating public policies."
She said that the e-petition portal precisely states the rules for submitting and signing petitions, that they must be clearly formulated, without offensive or illegal content, and without references to discrimination.
Čabarkapa said that petitions can be submitted, or later supported, by citizens of Montenegro and foreigners with permanent residence, via an online form, by entering personal data, including personal identification number (JMBG), and a specific proposal for activities that the Parliament should undertake.
"What happens after a petition is launched and signed is less defined, and there is no way for citizens to track the progress of each petition," Čabarkapa pointed out.
She stated that according to statistics available on the website of the Parliament of Montenegro, 2023 petitions were submitted in 28, compared to 23 last year.
"This is a warning that this portal has not been promoted enough, but also that many have been demotivated by the Parliament's attitude so far, since websites that are not connected to the institutions of Montenegro, such as Peticije.online and Change.org, are still used rather than this mechanism," believes Čabarkapa.
She said that the portal explained that if the petition is supported by at least six thousand citizens within 60 days, the relevant parliamentary committee will consider its content and decide on its possible formalization in the form of a bill (except for the budget and spatial plan).
"Practice has shown that not all petitions that generated a sufficient number of signatures within 60 days were considered by the committees, but that some were given priority treatment," Čabarkapa pointed out.
According to her, of the seven petitions that collected a sufficient number of signatures in 2023 and last year, only four were considered by the committees.
"The law does not define that the competent committee will consider every petition, which is used for the Assembly to reject at its discretion, without detailed explanation, petitions that it does not consider important," assessed Čabarkapa.
She said that the mechanism for electronically asking questions to MPs has not been promoted either.
"Citizens can ask a question to a member of parliament via a digital form on the ePetitions portal, with the note that anonymous, unclear or offensive questions are not considered. The Parliament's statistics, which are said to be updated daily, indicate that no one has used this mechanism so far," Čabarkapa stated.
CCE called on the Parliament of Montenegro to better promote mechanisms that should serve to strengthen citizens' trust in institutions, to make them more transparent in the process and outcomes of submitted petitions, and to ensure that citizens' personal data is protected.
Čabarkapa emphasized that when such mechanisms are used successfully and properly, they benefit the entire society, and therefore it is additionally important that the trust of citizens is not abused, and that everyone has equal opportunities in this system.
"The practice of dealing with e-petitions, unfortunately, leaves room for doubt among many, and the example of the petition for the preservation of Velika Plaza, for which signatures are being collected via the Change.org platform, and which has collected around 11 signatures in two weeks, confirms this," Čabarkapa concluded.
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