Mr Boris Maric, Senior Legal Advisor of the Centre for Civic Education (CCE) and the member of the Working Group on Chapter 23 (Judiciary and Fundamental Rights), is participating today at the regional conference “EU Accession: What is the role (if any) of CSOs?”. The conference is organised by the Balkan Civil Society Development Network, Institute for European politics and Cenzura plus, and it takes place on 16 January, in the capital city of Macedonia, Skopje.

The goal of the conference is to encourage the debate about European intergration and current position of the states in the region, through sharing of common experieces in this regard. Moreover, discussion will focus on establishment of the mechanisms that would enable creating institutional cooperation between civil society and state authorities, as well as to the identification of the specific recommendations in order to establish common platforms for action of civil society organisations, which role is fundamental in the process of accession, and governments, which lead the process of accession. In addition, the conference will deal with topics related to the European Structural and Cohesion Funds: these represent engines for the implementation of the economic and social policies and are available to EU potential candidates. »

Centre for Civic Education (CCE) informs the public that the Parliament of Montenegro, the Government of Montenegro and the Ministry of Justice refused to give an opinion to the Constitutional Court on the initiative to review the constitutionality of the Law on Misdemeanors.

We recall that CCE submitted, about three months ago, to the Constitutional Court the initiative to review the constitutionality of the Law on Misdemeanors, pointing out that the 68 judges are appointed by the Government of Montenegro, contrary to the Constitution, which states that judges in Montenegro are elected by the Judicial Council. The Constitutional Court still did not take a position concerning this matter. »

Centre for Civic Education (CCE), in the light of the current changes to the Constitution, renews its call to change the constitutional norm that defines the so-called “right of citizens initiative”. This norm does not encourage active citizenship, which is an essential precondition for the democratization of Montenegrin society and building of democratic political culture.

CCE calls for change of the article 93 of Montenegrin Constitution, according to which “the right to propose laws has six thousand voters, through member of Parliament whom they have given an authorization.” This definition of the institution of genuine civic initiative in the Montenegrin reality metamorphosed into a party institute, whereby at loss were exactly the citizens of Montenegro. Specifically, in the Parliament, instead of citizens, a draft of an initiative proposal, law or other text must be introduced by a member of certain political group. This inevitably leads to the labeling of the initiative, which automatically suppresses such initiative in its embryo, as we are witnessing the practice by which MP’s consider more important a person who is submitting a proposal rather than the very content and expediency of the proposal. »