Statement by Jovan Kojičić, Secretary of Anti-Discrimination Council and Advisor to Prime Minister

Statement by Jovan Kojičić, Secretary of the Anti-Discrimination Council and Advisor to Prime Minister for Human Rights and Protection against Discrimination

In view of the allegations stated in certain media that the Anti-Discrimination Council “showed a disturbing level of hermetism for any kind of conclusion that would lead to encouragement of relevant authorities to process political discrimination in Montenegro”, and that there was no “willingness by the competent state authorities to state the information publicly” without pretensions to deny the right of participants of the event to interpret the discussion from that session in their own way, and for the purpose of providing full information to the public, I point to the following:

1. Discussing the topic of possible discrimination on the basis of political/party orientation, the Anti-Discrimination Council showed full openness to discuss and follow concrete problem area and concluded that it is “most important that all the state institutions of Montenegro efficiently and professionally perform the duties they are in charge of and thus contribute to establishment of a higher level of legal security of citizens, as a basis for intensification of democratic development of Montenegrin society.” In that way, the Council sent a clear political message that it would follow this process until its completion and depending on the results of relevant authorities’ work it would make an estimate of purpose-serving quality of the possible continuation of discussion on that topic. In addition, all the previous initiatives submitted in that connection by the non-governmental sector do not represent a specific request at all, but “knocking on the open door”, taking into account that legal and political investigation with regard to this concrete case is pending.

2. The Prime Minister, who is at the same time the President of Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), also pointed out that coalition contracts did not represent a secret to DPS and there were no obstacles for the public to get familiar with its contents in a relevant manner.

3. The Council carefully discussed the topic for more than two hours on the topic suggested by the representatives of the NGO sector and at the end of discussion there was not a single argument which would factually confirm the suspicions set out in the initiative or require critical judgment on legality of the work of state institutions in this regard.

4. With a view to the requests to publish information from the responsible state authorities concerning the specific issues, the members of the Council from among the Government, i.e. line ministers, everyone within its competence, stated that the answers to the posed questions have been already available to the public through the procedures of the adoption of the budget and verification of the budget accounts.

5. With a view to freezing of the membership of the representatives of the NGO in the Council due to the alleged ignorance of the organizations of the persons with disability, the members of the Council from among the Government express deep regret bearing in mind a continuous, consistent and constructive cooperation of the responsible institutions, members of the Council and the Government with the organisations of the persons with disability. For the purpose of operationalizing the activities and tasks, undertaking of the full responsibility and solving of specific problems at all levels and in all fields, the Government charged the responsible ministries with operationalizing, within their competence, the work of the advisory bodies, including the Council for care of persons with disabilities, while at the same time the Council for protection against discrimination chaired by the Prime Minister, is fully open for all issues related to the persons with disability, which has been also confirmed by the 2013 Work Program Guidelines of the Council. The impression remains that the freezing of the membership, i.e. the expression of dissatisfaction due to the unwillingness of the Council to make the judgments of the work of institutions based on the suspicions of the NGO representatives, rather than the responsible state authorities make the objective legal and political judgments on this issue.