On the afternoon of 3 December, the so-called ‘Working Group’ on the UPR considered the human rights situation in Montenegro. The country’s own delegation to the hearing was led by the Minister of Justice, H.E. Mr. Miras Radovic.

From an independent human rights perspective, the overall impression is that Montenegrin state’s self-assessment addressed issues in a broad and general manner. Certainly, more detail on some of the issues would have been useful. While the report was reflective of many of the key concerns identified also by NGOs and UN organs, these were again addressed in a very general manner. Facts, statistics and attention to detail were all largely lacking.

We were never asked
According to Slobodan Franovic, president of the Montenegrin Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, the Government of Montenegro adopted the national report on the human rights situation on 31st of July 2008. Although it is stated in the report that it has “called all interested parties” to give their comments by 21st of August 2008, this information was not communicated to the majority of non-governmental organizations. Hence, only a few organizations and one individual were able to give their comments in time. The majority of other NGOs working on human rights, including the Montenegrin Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, were not informed about the deadline. Likewise, they were never notified about the process  of making the national report. For this reason, the entire process of making the national report was nither public, transparent nor open.

“Since it did not consult NGOs, the Government ensured that certain crucial human rights problems in Montenegro were left out from the agenda for the UPR hearing. This way, our authorities saved themselves from being asked any questions relating to these issues. For instance, one of the key problems regarding human rights in Montenegro is the huge deficit of legal mechanisms for the protection of human rights. This was not even mentioned”, said Franovic.

Dead letters on paper
The issues addressed by the so-called ‘other stakeholders’ (six NGOs and one individual), included the lack of an anti-discrimination act, the lack of adequate human rights guarantees in the new constitution, the independence of the judiciary, and the restrictive definition of the term ‘minorities’ in the constitution. The situation of the Roma people was also raised in terms of their poor social and economic conditions, the discrimination they experience when trying to access public services, and the lack of proper education for Roma children.

Franovic adds that the human rights situation in Montenegro has improved, and ascribes this in part to the fact that Montenegro has signed a number of international human rights treaties in recent years. However, there is still a significant ‘implementation gap’, and Franovic points out that the absence of effective legal mechanisms for the protection of human rights is an area where there is definitely room for improvement. So far, he adds, all the adopted standards (in the Constitution of Montenegro and from international treaties) are simply “dead letters on paper”.

In Montenegro, there are no direct criminal-legal protection of human rights, especially in criminal-legal practice. And in cases where it might be possible to pursue criminal procedures with reference to violations of one or more human rights, the procedures last much too long. For this reason, such cases are rarely brought to court and even more rarely result in convictions.

“The non-existence of consultations and the non-presence of representatives of civil society on our country’s UPR hearing in Geneva shows the real status of human rights NGOs in Montenegro”, concluded Franovic.

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