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DPM Pažin: Proposed law protects fundamental value...
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DPM Pažin: Proposed law protects fundamental value of Montenegro as community of free and equal citizens
Published on: Dec 26, 2019 • 6:00 PM Author: PR Service
"As every regulation realises its value only in contact with life, I find it extremely important that we open a dialogue today on the fundamental social values protected by this law, that is, to offer to our citizens a clear answer to the question why this law is needed in today's Montenegro and why it is even more needed in Montenegro we are leaving to future generations," Deputy Prime Minister Zoran Pažin said in his opening address during the debate on the Proposal for the Law on Freedom of Religion in the Parliament of Montenegro.He noted that these values were reflected in the constitutional provision that Montenegro is a community of free and equal citizens, in which, regardless of different ethnic origin, practicing or not practicing of religion, all citizens of Montenegro are equal before the law.
"Whether we want to admit it or not, contemporary Montenegro would not exist if citizens of all faiths and nations had not, in both distant and recent history, built, defended and restored it, based on the everlasting values of freedom, justice, equality and solidarity. Today, the most developed democracies of the world, including the idea of a united Europe, rest on these same universal values. "
DPM Pažin noted that, for this reason, for today's Montenegro there is no other way forward than to decisively reject all those ideologies that teach that there are more valuable and less valuable nations and religions in it.
"To be perfectly clear - I find it equally unacceptable to insult and deny the Montenegrin state identity, both when the disappearance of our state is celebrated in the name of the Greater Serbian nationalism or when Njegoš is declared a genocidal writer, or when irresponsible civil servants rudely insult the believers of the Serbian Orthodox Church," the Deputy Prime Minister said and added:
"Therefore, this Proposal for the Law in front of you does not stand in the way of one ethno-nationalism in order to raise and give birth to another. No! We enact this law so that everyone in Montenegro would have equal right, guided by their own conscience, to be or not to be believers of any religion, and that the laws of Montenegro would equally apply to everyone."
Furthermore, DPM Pažin commented on the political views that it may not be the right time to adopt this law or that it should be postponed for some future time.
He said that the essence of this question was actually - do we want the generation of our children, in twenty or thirty years, to continue to debate which religious and national communities in Montenegro are older and more important and which deserve more rights than the others?
"I have absolutely no dilemma that we must provide the next generation, once and for all, with a clear answer to this question - that in civic state of Montenegro, the oldest and most important are those values that unite Montenegrins of all faiths and nations," the Deputy Prime Minister emphasised.
"Only such values can establish the national identity of Montenegro, which goes deeper than all our differences and in which humanism and altruism is the undisputed safeguard of human dignity.
It is this multi-religious and multi-ethnic identity that we are rightly proud of and that today Montenegro is recognised and appreciated for, both in our neighbourhood and around the world."
However, he added, in order to further build and preserve these values, as a precondition for progress of our society, it is necessary for everyone in Montenegro to show full understanding for all our differences, as well as a high degree of agreement on the universal human and civic values that unite us and bring us together.
"That is why I urge all religious communities and all social stakeholders to contribute, through dialogue and mutual respect, through the implementation of this law, to the permanent establishment of Montenegro as a community of free and equal citizens.
Only in this way can religious and national differences be what they truly are - the true wealth of civil Montenegro," DPM Pažin concluded.
OFFICE OF DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
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