Agency for Prevention of Corruption

ODIHR mission visited APC

July 7, 2020

Yesterday, Mr Savo Milašinović, PhD, Acting Director of the Agency for Prevention of Corruption, met with Mr Vladimir Misev and Mr Aleksije Ličkov, the representatives of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The meeting was also attended by Mr Dušan Drakić, the head of the Division for Control of Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns.

The topics of the meeting were the assessment of the situation in the field of control of financing of political entities and election campaigns in Montenegro, the measures undertaken by the Agency for the improvement of the situation in this field, the activities undertaken by the Agency on the preparation of the process of control of financing the election campaign for the parliamentary elections scheduled for 30 August, as well as ongoing activities in the process.

In this regard, the representatives of the Agency informed the ODIHR representatives that the Agency had initiated 46 proposals for amendments to the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns since 2017 and that some of those proposals had been adopted by the Parliament of Montenegro, which had significantly improved the environment for the control of financing of political entities and election campaigns compared to the previous period.

As regards the activities related to the preparation of control of financing the election campaign for the upcoming parliamentary elections, the ODIHR representatives were introduced to the recently adopted Control and Supervision Plan which defines the activities aimed at political entities and authorities that the Agency will proactively carry out in order to control the compliance with legal obligations, prohibitions and restrictions during the election campaign.

It was especially emphasized that the Control and Supervision Plan would be implemented in accordance with the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns, as well as in accordance with the methodologies for effective implementation of the Agency's control competencies, which had been defined taking into account the proposals of international experts and the civil sector, and whose draft had been previously prepared by the Council of Europe experts in cooperation with the Agency.

The representatives of the APC said that the Agency was open to continue cooperation with the representatives of international organizations and the civil sector during the control procedure of the election process, and they introduced the ODIHR to the promotional material through which the Agency tells the general and professional public to submit complaints to the Agency and other competent authorities during the election campaign in case of indications of a possible violation of the law.

The representatives of the ODIHR were also interested in the capacities of the Agency, from which they received an answer that the authority was completely ready for the control procedure of the upcoming election process within its competencies.

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