The roles, scope of work, authority and responsibility concerning accountability of liaison officers in public institutions for cooperation with CSOs are poorly defined and understood. There is a lack of commitment within political leadership and higher management in public administration to fully implement obligations defined within adopted government documents and to create sustainable structures for consultations with CSOs.
Participation of NGOs in a structured and organized manner in public policy development at the national level is not defined by law and there are no structures for facilitating it.
CSOs have long been lobbying without success for the establishment of mechanisms to enable civil society to engage in regular and structured forms of policy dialogue. In 2007, the Centre for Development NGOs (CRNVO) prepared a Model Law on Transparency of Preparation and Implementation of State Acts for this purpose, which defined clear deadlines, responsibilities and mechanisms of public debates, adopting recommendations from the Council of Europe’s document “Basic Principles on Status of CSOs in Europe.” The Government of Montenegro has refused to support this draft law and put it before the Parliament. Consequently, ministries and state institutions only consult with CSOs on strategy, policy and law making infrequently and on an ad hoc basis. Over the years, substantive participation by CSOs in policy dialogue has been rare and in almost all cases at the behest of international development agencies or donors which are promoting the process.
The Law on the prohibition of discrimination
At the end of 2009, non-governmental organizations actively participated in the drafting of the Law on the prohibition of discrimination. Large number of NGOs commented the draft prepared by the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights. This process went on with the great involvement of the NGO sector as it is a matter of very serious and important law. Civil society representatives participated in all public debates, round tables and other events pertaining to this law. The draft law included a number of comments that came from the civil society. It is expected to enter the parliamentary procedure of spring session of Parliament.
The Law on Volunteering
At the beginning of 2010, CSOs prepared model of the Law on volunteerism and submitted it to Parliament by group of delegates for the adoption. But, its adoption was stopped after the submission of the proposal with a similar name by the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare – of the Law on volunteer work. At first, there was hope that it will find a way to reconcile the two proposals, but it turned out that the proposal of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, unfortunately, treats this issue only through the prism of the Labor work and does not create a favorable environment for the development of volunteering, but the reverse. Despite the fact that a large number of non-governmental organizations, as well as group members pointed out the inconsistency of this proposal with international standards, he entered the parliamentary procedure. The first draft submitted by CSOs law is totally ignored.
Positive examples include:
National Action Plan for Gender Equality (PAPRR) – 11 CSOs worked with the Government Office for Gender Equality over 2005/6 on developing the first draft. CSOs led consultations with the public and the gathering of field data. The PAPRR was not adopted until July 2008, after the Law on Gender Equality passed in July 2007. Since that time the Office for Gender Equality has organized just one meeting with Women’s CSOs.
National Action Plan for Roma Inclusion was adopted in January 2005, and it was drafted with the full participation of Roma CSO Network with support from UNDP.
National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD) – 7 CSOs participated in the Government working group which drew up the NSSD during 2006. Organization “Most” was responsible for leading participatory consultations. This process was also support by UNDP and the strategy adopted in April 2007.
Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy 2004‐6 (DPRS): CSOs were key participants in the process of prioritizing DPRS projects. CSO MANS was engaged to work on monitoring DPRS implementation.
Law on Financing of Political Parties and the Law on Financing of the Campaign for the Election of the President of Montenegro, Mayors and Municipality Presidents, were both drawn up by CEMI, through an initiative supported by FOSI Montenegro, in order to advance the implementation of The Action Plan for the Fight against Corruption and Organized Crime. CEMI and MANS have been recruited to sit on the monitoring committee of the Programme established to implement the Action Plan.
The Secretariat for European Integration developed the Government’s EU Communication Strategy for informing the public about the process of European integration in cooperation with CSOs. However, the final document and its implementation are considered by the CSO community to be seriously flawed. Insufficient finance has been provided by the Government for effective implementation and Government‐civil society partnerships have not been established to this end. In addition, when reporting on the implementation of the Strategy, the Government included reference to all other CSO projects in support of the Strategy which were funded independently by other donors, an approach which CSOs active in the European integration process consider misleading and unfair. In May 2008, the Secretariat for European Integration signed a Memorandum of Understanding with 11 CSOs which envisages among other things, cooperation with civil society in drawing‐up of a revised EU Communication Strategy; this process has not yet started. In addition, the Secretariat has indicated that it believes CSOs should be involved in revising the National Plan for the Integration of Montenegro into the European Union. The Government, however, has so far failed to issue a set of concrete, structured guidelines for the possible forms of cooperation for this work.
In 2009, Ministry for European Integration was established and replaced Secretariat. In the same year, Ministry signed Memorandum of Understanding with 11 CSOs which envisages, such as the previous one, cooperation with civil society in drawing up of a revised EU Communication Strategy. At this moment, representatives of CSOs (signatories) and Ministry are in the process of finalizing new Communication Strategy.
Civil society’s input into the work of the Parliament and its representatives is similarly constrained. CSOs are not included as consultants on any of the standing parliamentary committees and parliamentarians rarely use their right to call upon CSOs and other expert witnesses for the purpose of clarifying issues pertaining to existing or proposed acts of parliament.
Prior to the adoption of the new Constitution of October 2007, CSOs had the right to propose new legislation directly to Parliament if they could collect 6,000 signatures in support of their action. This right has now been revoked and limiting unfairly, in their view, CSOs’ access to the legislative process and tying CSO advocacy initiatives to the political patronage of individual MPs. New Constitution implies that initiatives prepared by CSOs with 6000 signatures cannot be submitted directly, but by one delegate in Parliament. This decreases their direct participation in shaping public policies. By choosing one delegate, CSOs may immediately be linked with the political party he represents. This situation has negative impact on nature and substance of CSOs initiatives.
The Law on Local Self-Government in Montenegro prescribes that local administrations cooperate extensively with local civil society and promote its role in the decision-making process. Although municipalities have declared almost universally their formal support for the conditions of the law, performance in this area is decidedly patchy, and substantive participation of CSOs in local development strategy and policy-making still a rarity.
A particular point of contention for CSOs is the legally defined right for local CSOs to participate in plenary sessions of local assemblies (without voting rights), the so-called “free” or “empty” chair. This institution has to date only been implemented satisfactorily with clear rules and guidelines in one of Montenegro’s 21 municipalities (Tivat).