Today, journalists and editors of Montenegrin media invited the Ministry of Public Administration to withdraw proposed amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information from the procedure since proposed solutions significantly endanger the work of the media community.
Amendments to the Law presented by the Ministry of Public Administration represent a huge step backwards even in relation to the existing Law, whose implementation has already been widely criticized by the domestic and international public.
This is predominantly related to new restrictions on access to information, which have been further expanded by the amendments, which leaves even more room for public institutions to deny access to information without clearly defined criteria.
In this way, each state body is given enormous discretionary power to completely independently, without clearly defined procedures decide what is “unreasonable request”, what are “too many requests” and how seeking information “may jeopardize the work of an authority”. The restrictions set out in this way have the clear aim of practically legitimizing past behaviour of state institutions that have arbitrarily rejected requests for access to information, especially those which could indicate the existence of corruption or other violations of the law.
We particularly warn that perhaps the most problematic restriction comes in the pre-election year, and it refers to the possibility of political parties being exempted from the implementation of this law. Bearing in mind the current practice of transparency in spending political parties’ money, it is more than obvious that the proposed restriction has the sole purpose of concealing political corruption.
Considering all of the above, we believe that the proposed amendments represent an attack primarily on investigative journalism in Montenegro and aim at further limiting and completely discrediting civilian control of the Government work.
The proposed amendments to the Law contradict good international practice, and are in complete contradiction with the European Commission’s long-standing recommendations regarding the general transparency of the Government’s work and free access to information in general.
Adopting such amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information would be a step backwards in the results achieved so far in reforming the free access to information, but unfortunately, also a proof that the Government is continuously derogating the laws it has previously developed in cooperation with the international community.
Therefore, we call on the Ministry to respect the Constitution and international conventions, and to return to revision the proposed amendments to the Law that limit the right of access to information, as well as the work of the media and non-governmental organizations.
The undersigned editors and journalists,
- Danilo Ajković, journalist, FOS Media
- Tatjana Ašanin, editor, TV Vijesti
- Marijana Bojanić, executive of Vijesti
- Mirko Bošković, investigative journalist
- Svetlana Đokić, journalist, TV Vijesti
- Ivana Gudović, editor, ID Vijesti
- Jelena Jovanović, journalist, ID Vijesti
- Jaša Jovićević, executive, agency MINA
- Goran Kapor, journalist, ID Vijesti
- Damira Kalač, journalist, ID Vijesti
- Srdan Kosović, editor, ID Vijesti
- Milica Krgović, journalist, DAN
- Danijela Lasica, journalist, TV Vijesti
- Vuk Lajović, journalist, ID Vijesti
- Nikola Marković, editor, DAN
- Draško Milačić, journalist, DAN
- Milorad Milošević, journalist, ID Vijesti
- Milka Tadić Mijović, executive CIN-CG
- Marija Mirjačić, journalist, ID Vijesti
- Jovan Nikitović, journalist, Pobjeda
- Ana Ostojić, journalist, DAN
- Vladimir Otašević, journalist, DAN
- Mihailo Jovović, journalist, ID Vijesti
- Tina Popović, editor, ID Vijesti
- Zoran Radulović, journalist, Monitor
- Mila Radulovic, editor, ID Vijesti
- Miloš Rudović, journalist, ID Vijesti
- Marko Vešović, journalist, DAN
- Duško Vuković, journalist
- Dobrila Plamenac Vuković, editor, PCNEN
