Today, several international organizations and experts joined over 40 Montenegrin NGOs and close to 30 media representatives in calling on the Ministry of Public Administration to postpone a public debate on the Law on Free Access to Information.
NGOs and journalists have previously warned the Ministry of Public Administration and Minister Suzana Pribilović that in a situation of uncertainty and anticipation of the peak of the coronavirus epidemic, it is not appropriate or democratic to organize a public debate on such an important law.
The call of representatives of Montenegrin civil society was supported by Toby Mendel, Executive Director of the Center for Law and Democracy from Canada, Sebastijan Peterka of Transparency International Slovenia, Prof. Dr. Josip Kregar, Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, and Said Essoulami, Consultant at the Center for Media Freedoms in Morocco.
Drew Sullivan, editor of OCCRP – Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, commenting on the Law on Free Access to Information, stated in his letter of support: “When people are dying, citizens have the ultimate right to know what their country is doing to remedy the situation and how limited resources are spent. There is no reason to waste valuable government resources on such hypocritical measures. The public has the fundamental right to know, and everything else is simply criminal and undemocratic.”
Last days, the decision to continue the public debate has also been criticized by the Transparency International Secretariat from Berlin, leading global anti-corruption organization, stating that it is inappropriate to work on this law “by force and in the atmosphere of a collective fear of an upcoming epidemic”.
Access Info Europe from Madrid also announced that “the reform of the transparency law cannot take place in a manner that is shrouded in secrecy, and it is of great concern that the Law on Free Access to Information is being amended during a serious health crisis and just a few months before parliamentary elections.”
Let us remind that the Ministry of Public Administration announced the continuation of a public consultations on the Law on Free Access to Information two weeks after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global pandemic, and just days before Montenegro declared an epidemic on its territory.
Minister Pribilović is obliged to inform Montenegrin public who exactly has the greatest interest in continuing the processing of the Law on FAI at the time of the announced peak of the coronavirus epidemic, especially considering the catastrophic solutions introduced by this law.
The Minister of Public Administration, Suzana Pribilović, has not yet answered the question of who has an interest in considering such an important law when Montenegro is practically on the verge of a state of emergency and what is the “interested public” that is pressuring to end the entire process in an atmosphere of general uncertainty and fear of the upcoming epidemics of the coronavirus.
MANS
