članica Građanske alijanse Program: Monitoring of Human Rights in Montenegro HUMAN RIGHTS IN MONTENEGRO - 2011 Podgorica, January 2012 Monitoring programme and human rights protection programme implemented by YIHR MNE with the assistance and cooperation of The Balkan Trust for Democracy Youth Initiative for Human Rights, Montenegro January 2012 Publisher Boris Raonić Editor Milan Radović Project cooperators Ajša Hadžibegović Boris Raonić Edin Koljenović Edina Hasanaga Čobaj Mirko Kalezić Proofreading Jelena Ristović Translation Jelena Ristović Design Aleksandar Pajević Print AP print, Podgorica 400 copies Opinions presented in the report do not necessarily represent opinions and standpoints of BTD. CIP – Каталогизација у публикацији Централна народна библиотека Црне Горе, Цетиње ISBN 978-9940-608-00-2 COBISS.CG-ID 19552528 2 CONTENT I Previous information ........................................................................................ 5 II Institutional framework in the area of human rights .................................... 7 III Facing past ..................................................................................................... 17 IV Torture, inhuman and degrading treatment .............................................. 25 V Politically motivated violence ....................................................................... 55 VI Right to fair trial............................................................................................ 65 VII Freedom of expression, peaceful gathering and associating ................... 69 VIII Protection of personal data ....................................................................... 85 IX Religious freedoms ....................................................................................... 91 X Discrimination .............................................................................................. 101 XI Rights of children ........................................................................................ 125 XII Minority rights ........................................................................................... 133 XIII Displaced and internally displaced persons .......................................... 139 XIV Economic and social rights ...................................................................... 143 XV Reports on the state of human rights ....................................................... 151 XVI Conclusions and recommendations ....................................................... 155 3 4 I Previous information Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR), member of Civic Alliance (CA) monitors respect of human rights in Montenegro sixth year in a row, and informs public about the findings via annual and quarterly reports. Previous reports may be found at our web site www.yihr.me This Report includes human rights areas we have identified through work as the most concerning and the areas are as follows: facing past, torture, politically motivated violence, right to fair trial, freedom of expression, gathering and associating, protection of personal data, religious freedom, discrimination, rights of children, minority rights, status of displaced and economic and social rights. Researching and writing of the Report worked six members team of CA with the support of Balkan Trust for Democracy (BTD). In preparation of the Report, we used the techniques of researching on the terrain, press clipping, legal analysis, interviews, SOS phone line, and official reports of public institutions. Information provided in the Report were collected from 1 January to 31 December 2011. GA is grateful to all cooperators at the project, Center for children rights from Podgorica, CAZAS, UNHCR, and numerous individuals. The most important political event in 2011 happened on 9 December 2011, when Montenegro received conditional date for the beginning of negotiations with the European Union on the accession. Montenegro shall open negotiations in June 2012, if the country continues to achieve results in the fight against corruption and organized crime. According to the data which are not final, because at the time of receiving data European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg prepared annual report on work of courts, the Court received from Montenegro 920 applications. Out of this number, 30 applications were processed in the phase of main trial. Almost 300 applications were rejected because they were groundless and for other reasons. Until the end of 2011, eight verdicts were rendered and they defined violation of at least one convention right. Mostly established were violations of right to fair trial in reasonable time, one area each in lack of execution of court verdict, right to the access to court, use of property, right to private and family life, and two cases of violation of right to freedom of expression. According to the number of applications, in comparison with the 5 Logo „ Free as a man “ number of citizens, Montenegro is in line with the countries whose citizens delivered the most applications. At the margins of General Assembly of United Nations, on 23 September 2011, was presented International logo of human rights. Logo was elected at the international competition by the votes of experts and citizens, after the five months procedure. At the competition arrived more than 15.000 proposals from more than 190 countries. Author of the winning logo “Free as a man” was Predrag Stakić , designer from Belgrade. 6 II Institutional framework in the area of human rights a. Constitutional court of Montenegro According to the Constitution of Montenegro from 2007, the Constitutional court shall, among others, decide on harmonization of law with the Constitution and defined and published International Treaties, and on constitutional complaint due to the violation of human rights and freedoms, guaranteed by the Constitution, after use of all legal means. The Constitutional court has seven judges. The court informed the CA researcher that Constitutional court received large numbers of constitutional complaints therefore, as the report on work was not done at the time of collecting data for this report, the court did not have precise data. Public often criticize the work of Constitutional court, stating it was inefficient and non-transparent. In the case Koprivica against Montenegro, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, confirmed that. Although the country considered that all legal means were not used in national judiciary, or that the complaint was not sent to Constitutional court, in explanation of adopting complaint the Court stated that Constitutional court in previous period did not show efficiency and transparency important for considering the complaint efficient and effective legal remedy. Then, until 31 July 2011, when the complaint arrived at the Court in Strasbourg not any verdict of Constitutional court had been rendered, or presented to public. Similar case was registered in 2010, but even after this, large number of verdicts was not presented to public. This decision of Court in Strasbourg opened the window for ignoring the Constitutional court as the legal remedy and in other cases of human rights violation, unless efficiently and transparency of its work significantly changes. The Report developed by NGO Human Rights Action (HRA) also stated that constitutional complaint in Montenegro was not efficient legal remedy. The Report also stated that the Constitutional court had the power to react only in the case of human rights violations which was in the concrete case committed, while the court may not protect human rights in cases when they have been violated by omission, 7 failure to adopt an act or when rights have been violated by some factual 1 action. The budget of the Constitutional court for 2012 is 692,353.74 EUR. b. Ministry for human and minority rights Work of the Ministry for human and minority rights has been organized through the Sector for promotion and protection of rights of minority population and other minority national communities and Sector for improvement and protection of human rights. Within the Ministry function Department for gender equality affairs and Department for improvement and 2 protection of rights of Roma, Askhelia and Egyptians. The Government announced establishing of the sector that would deal with religious issues. The Ministry has 12 employees but the systematization prescribed 27 servants. According to CA findings, small number of servants speaks English language. Media published that Ferhat Dinoša, Minister for human and minority rights shall resign, which continuously required almost whole NGO sector, due to his homophobic statements during 2010. Minister Dinoša did not resign but was appointed for the Ambassador in Albania. During 2011, the Ministry conducted media antidiscrimination campaign. The campaign included various types of media and messages were transmitted through billboards, leaflets, and advertisement in daily newspaper and videos. On TV Teuta from Ulcinj, videos were broadcasted on Albanian language. The Ministry organized workshops on which civil servants were educated on antidiscrimination legislation. The training covered employees in judiciary, police, inspection bodies and other institutions. On 7 July 2011, the Government of Montenegro adopted the Information on representation of minority population and other minority national communities in public services, public authorities, and local self-government, which has been developed by the Ministry according