All ID cards issued before the start of issuing new, "smart" ones ceased to be valid on September 30th, and when replacing them, citizens are required to declare them invalid, but they are not required to pay a fee for that service.
This was told to "Vijesti" by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP). They provided the response as an explanation for a specific case, in which a citizen told the editorial staff that he had lost his old ID card, that he had submitted a request for a new one, but that he was told that he had to declare the old one invalid.
With the comment that the old ID card was definitely no longer valid, because that is what the law states, he had a dilemma regarding declaring the old document invalid and the obligation to pay a fee for it.
From the department he leads Danilo Šaranović They reminded that, according to the Law on Identity Cards, an identity card ceases to be valid before its expiration for several reasons: termination of citizenship, deletion from the residence record, death, if any of the personal data entered in the identity card is changed, if the data in the identity card is illegible or is damaged in its entirety, if the citizen significantly changes his/her appearance, and if it is declared invalid.
The law also, they said, stipulates that it can be used until the expiration date, "and no later than September 30, 2025."
"Given that when delivering a new document, it is necessary to first physically cancel the previously issued document, even though the ID card has legally expired, it is necessary to report it as lost to an authorized official at the counter, but without the obligation to pay the fee for advertising in the Official Gazette of Montenegro. An instruction from the Ministry of the Interior has been drawn up regarding the above, with the aim of uniform action by regional units and branches," they stated in their response to "Vijesti".
The issuance of the new ID card is stipulated in the Law on Amendments to the Law on ID Cards from 2019. Based on the law, the Ministry of Interior was supposed to start issuing the document on March 30, 2020, but this was postponed until the beginning of the summer of the same year, due to measures aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus epidemic.
The law also stipulated a five-year deadline for replacing old ID cards, meaning that all citizens were required to submit a request for a new ID card by the end of March this year. However, that deadline was also extended by half a year, to the end of September.
The new ID cards, unlike the old ones, contain digital certificates, which allow citizens to digitally prove their identity and sign digitally.
The procedure for issuing a new ID card is identical to the previous one. Citizens are exempt from paying the administrative fee for issuing an ID card, while the fee for the form is five euros.
Some are in no hurry to download
As of October 13, 509.524 ID cards had been replaced in Montenegro, the Ministry of Interior said. Almost 60.000 remain to be replaced, they added, but that number, they explained, also includes those that citizens have not yet received.
"59.487 ID cards remained unexchanged (or undelivered ID cards, because this number of 59.487 includes the number of those that were approved, but citizens have not yet collected them from the competent regional units-branches)," said the Ministry of Interior.
As they added, the most unexchanged ID cards are in Podgorica (13.707), Nikšić (5.647), Bar (5.013), Bijelo Polje (4.655) and Ulcinj (3.695).
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