The Government of Montenegro actively obstructed access to translation of the Acquis, but following strategic litigation conducted by MANS, and decisions of the Administrative and the Supreme Court, this information is finally accessible at internet.
The Government of Montenegro obtained translation of significant part of the Acquis as a gift of the Government of Croatia, in electronic form. However, translation of the Acquis was not available even to the Members of the Parliament of Montenegro, not to mention to the public.
We have submitted FOI request to the Government of Montenegro and ask electronic version of the translated Acquis. The Government refused to provide us with information stating it is “intellectual property” of Croatian Government. We submitted the appeal to the Administrative Court. The Administrative Court confirmed decision of the Government, that the information should be secret.
We submitted the case to the Supreme Court who decided in favor of transparency and nullified decision of the Administrative Court, who then ordered the Government to make another decision, in line with the law.
Even though the Government obtained translation of the Acquis in electronic form, they allowed us access to information, but only by having insight into those documents in the premises of the Government, each working day for the period of three hours. If we spent a minute for each of over 100.000 pages, it would take us over two years to finish with reading, and still not be able to share that information with the rest of the public.
We submitted another appeal to the Administrative Court and the Government finally published all documents at http://www.prevodi.gov.me/ .
