Watchdog organisations urged the government to improve a draft law to seize assets acquired through crime and corruption, warning that state institutions will not be able to implement it.
Montenegrin Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic (right) and the head of watchdog NGO MANS Vanja Calovic Markovic at a conference in Podgorica. Photo: Government of Montenegro
Montenegrin watchdog organisations called on the government on Thursday to improve legal amendments to the draft Law on Confiscation of Proceeds of Crime before sending it to parliament.
“Poor legal amendments can lead to a lack of expected results in practice and to the failure of the proceedings that are initiated. In that case, they will also cause additional costs to the state budget,” Podgorica-based lawyer Veselin Radulovic told media.
Radulovic argued that state institutions will not have the capacity to implement the law.
Deputy Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic presented the new legislation last October as an “anti-mafia law” that will improve the country’s fight against organised crime and corruption.
But the head of the prominent watchdog NGO MANS, Vanja Calovic Markovic, warned that amendments to the law should specify strict procedures so they can be effective in the fight against organised crime and corruption.
“In the amendments to the law, the government no longer mentions the criminalisation of illegal enrichment, even though they promised it will be one of this law’s priorities. As a criminal offence, illegal enrichment means that officials who cannot explain the origin of their property can therefore go to prison, and not just have their property confiscated,” Calovic Markovic told the daily newspaper Pobjeda.
“When it comes to fighting against corruption, political will is best shown by example,” she added.
During a public hearing in December, the prosecution and watchdog organisations criticized the government’s proposed amendments to the draft law.
They suggested that the illegal enrichment of public officials should be criminalised, and warned that the proposed deadlines for conducting investigations are too short.
On June 7, media reported an EU expert’s report which said that the legislative framework is difficult to understand due to mixed procedures and contradictory and overlapping legal provisions.
The expert’s report warned that, according to the amendments to the law, the new office of the Protector of Property and Legal Interests is in charge of confiscation procedures, even though it has no experience in criminal proceedings and financial investigations.
The law needs the support of at least 41 MPs in the 81-seat parliament, although all the ruling parties and some opposition parties have pledged to support the amendments, which suggests they will be passed.
In last year’s progress report on would-be EU member Montenegro, the European Commission said its track record on the confiscation of assets for crime and corruption remained modest.
It pointed out that during 2020, only one residential unit of 193 square metres was confiscated while in the first half of 2021, assets were temporarily frozen in two cases.
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