Latest statement by the Minister of Public Administration, Suzana Pribilović, in which she tries to relativize the resistance of the civil sector to disastrous amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information, is a sad reminder that the Minister has already aligned with those who wish to turn this law into a service for organized crime and corrupt public officials.
It is not an issue for Minister Pribilović that “only” 44 non-governmental organizations are opposed to such decisions, but rather that it is the most influential part of the Montenegrin non-governmental sector, which has successfully used the Law to unmask numerous corrupt public officials and criminals related to them.
In counting those who do not wish to agree to such scenario, Pribilović has forgotten that journalists and editors of the media with the greatest influence in Montenegro have raised their voices against the amendments to the law. The Minister forgot that Transparency International, the largest global anti-corruption organization, as well as OCCRP, a network of media research centres from around the world, consider the amendments to the Law devastating.
The Minister is also refuted by the reports of the European Commission, which particularly criticize access to information in possession of the authorities and continuously demand greater transparency of the work of the Government of Montenegro in many areas. Finally, at a roundtable hosted by her Ministry, EU Ambassador to Podgorica, Aivo Orav, stressed the need for the law to be amended in order to take into account EU recommendations. On this occasion, the Ambassador emphasized the position of EU experts not to include the data abuse institute into the amendments to the Law.
In spite of all, the Ministry further expanded the existing restrictions and introduced new discretionary powers of the institutions to prohibit access to information at their discretion. The most drastic example is the deliberate intention to exempt political parties from the obligation to apply the Law on Free access to Information in order to open door to political corruption ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections.
Finally, it is utterly hypocritical to refer to the number of NGOs that have resisted the amendments to the Law, while at the same time ferociously quoting a semi-survey of an NGO about the Government of Montenegro being the most open in the region.
We are fully aware that the disputed amendments to the Law are used to discipline and reduce the impact of that part of the civil sector that Minster Pribilović and the like cannot put into service of ordinary DPS satellites from NGOs. Such treatment and amendments to this law are trying to silence the part of the non-governmental sector and the media that still does not agree on harmony between the state and organized crime and who still believes that the public has the right to know absolutely everything about who and in what way decides on their behalf and how their money is spent.
If the draft Law on FAI is adopted in unaltered form after the public debate, it will be an unequivocal confirmation that the Government of Montenegro openly ignores key EU recommendations and consciously seeks to slow down the fight against corruption and organized crime as a key integration reform.
The process of adopting the Law on Free Access to Information will be a great indicator of whether Montenegro is genuinely moving towards Europe or irreversibly sinking into a dense network of organized crime and corruption at all levels, and gaining the final contours of a state completely captured in the interests of the clique in power.
Dejan Milovac
Director of the Investigative Centre
MANS
