After the adoption of 152 decisions according to which political parties are obliged to publish information on their finances, the Agency for Free Access to Information changed the practice and decided that the parties no longer have to justify themselves to the public.
Such decision by the Agency was made two days after the opening of an investigation into the donations of the Democratic Party of Socialists, launched precisely on the basis of the MANS’ investigation and data obtained according to the Law on Free Access to Information. Also, the decision allowing the parties to hide data was adopted the day after the presidential elections, on whose funding the public has little information.
Obviously this is a decision made under the pressure of political parties, which shows that Montenegro is a captured state, where trust in the electoral process is increasingly undermined.
Over the past two years, MANS has submitted requests for information to all political parties, asking for more detailed information on the financing of election campaigns. Most of the parties did not respond to our requests, so we filed complaints with the Agency against all parliamentary political parties.
The Agency initially adopted 152 decisions which determined that parliamentary parties are obliged to publish information on their finances. For more than a year, the Agency has not made any decision regarding the requests to political parties, although a deadline for decision making is 15 days.
Following the change in practice, in less than a week, the Agency adopted over 90 decisions that enabled political parties to hide their finances.
In its new decisions, the Agency refers to the verdict of the Administrative Court from 2011, passed on the basis of the old Law. Two years after that verdict, a new Law on Free Access to Information came into force, which stipulated that parliamentary political parties were obliged to respect it.
This Law stipulates that all legal entities whose work is mostly financed from public revenues are obliged to publish data[1], while political parties must have at least half of the finances from the state and local budgets, in accordance with the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns[2].
Moreover, official data show that parliamentary political parties received 88% of total state and local government revenues in the last two years, i.e. € 14.3 million. Thus, it is undisputed that the parties are obliged to provide the citizens whose money they spend with an insight into information on their finances.
MANS will file charges against illegal and apparently political decisions of the Agency. We call upon the Administrative Court to pass verdicts in the shortest possible time, especially considering the importance of the fight against political corruption and the fact that one election campaign has just ended, and the other is in progress, while citizens do not have even basic information on their funding, although the funds come mostly from the state budget.
Today’s press conference, where Vanja Ćalović Marković, Executive Director, and Veselin Radulović, MANS legal adviser spoke, is available HERE and HERE
Presentation from the press conference can be downloaded HERE
All information on financing of the election campaign for the Parliamentary Elections obtained from political parties is available at http://www.mans.co.me/zbirni-podaci-o-finansiranju-izbornih-kampanja/
[1] “A public authority is a state body (legislative, executive, judicial, administrative), a local self-government body, a local government body, an institution, a business company and other legal entity founded, co-founded or majority owned by the state or the local self-government, a legal entity whose work is financed mainly from public revenues, as well as a natural person, entrepreneur or legal entity that exercises public authority or manages public funds.” Article 9, Paragraph 1 of the Law on Free Access to Information, in force from January 01, 2013.
[2] “Total amount of donations collected by parliamentary parties must not exceed the budgetary funds”. Article 12 of the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns.
