MANS filed today criminal charges to the Special State Prosecutor Milivoje Katnic against a number of persons unknown with the Ministry of Interior who had given the right to vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections to over 1,200 persons, in opposition to the Constitution and law, as they did not have lawfully declared Montenegrin residence for at least two years before elections. The charges also cover persons unknown with branches of the Ministry of Interior in all Montenegrin municipalities.
The aforesaid persons are charged with a number of offences set down in the Criminal Code, those being the following: compiling inaccurate electoral registers (Article 188 of the Criminal Code), abuse of official position over an extensive period of time (Article 416 paragraph 3 of the Criminal Code) and negligent performance of duty (Article 417 of the Criminal Code).
According to the documents MANS received through to the coordinating body for monitoring implementation of electoral process, 1,263 persons on the electoral register, who acquired Montenegrin citizenship after 16 October 2014, i.e. less than two years before the upcoming parliamentary elections to be held in October 2016, were identified. Namely, according to the Constitution and law only those Montenegrin citizens who are permanent residents for at least two years before the elections are entitled to vote in Montenegro, which means that these 1,263 persons were illegally registered on the electoral register, and given the right to vote contrary to the Constitution and law.
Namely, each of these 1,263 individuals had residence permits for foreign nationals before acquiring Montenegrin citizenship, so immediately after taking the citizenship they were registered on the electoral register. These actions taken by the Ministry of Interior are contrary to the provisions of the Law on Registers of Temporary and Permanent Residents and Foreigners Law, which entered into force in early 2015, prescribing that only those persons who have Montenegrin citizenship may register residence whereas foreign nationals are not entitled to do so.
Since 2015 until the present day, responsible persons from the Ministry of Interior have been obliged to remove foreign nationals from the register of residence and ensure that only Montenegrin nationals may be registered, especially taking into consideration that this is one of the conditions for exercising electoral right, i.e. this register is the basis for creating the electoral list.
Instead, the unknown persons in the Ministry of Interior have abused official position, aimed at influencing the results of the elections, so they have failed to provide an accurate and up-to-date register of residence of Montenegrin citizens, thus illegally registering 1,263 persons on the electoral list, which granted them the right to vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Therefore, a considerable number of unknown persons form the Ministry of Interior are charged with exceeding and abusing official powers, violating of law and failing to perform control activities over an extensive period of time, so as to influence the results of the elections, in compiling inaccurate electoral register thus granting at least 1,263 individuals, registered on the electoral register after 16 October 2014, the right to vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections, without meeting the requirements of having permanent residence of at least two years.
We appeal to the Special Prosecutor Milivoje Katnic to act urgently on criminal charges and ensure that prior to the upcoming parliamentary elections all responsible individuals, who granted 1,263 persons the right to vote, contrary to the Constitution and law, are prosecuted. This way Katnic would prevent undue influence on the electoral process and ensure that the result of the election is an outcome of freely expressed will of the citizens, and not merely the result of plotting and manipulations of electoral registers by certain structures within the Ministry of Interior.
Vuk Maras
Monitoring Program Director
