We believe that there is no efficient protection of civil servants reporting corruption in Montenegro, the so-called ”whistleblowers”, despite the provision of the Law on Civil Servants and Employees providing for such protection.

An obvious example is the case of veterinary inspector Mirjana Draskovic, who has been released from duty for over nine months and whose salary has been reduced by 40% for informing the public about the danger to the health of citizens and reporting the superiors for corruption.

Pursuant to the law, Ms. Draskovic reported irregularities in the work of the General Inspector of Veterinary Administration, the Director of the Veterinary Administration and the Minister responsible, after trying to influence the Administration to stop importing suspicious Brazilian chicken before the necessary control is carried out, since that area was affected by swine influenza virus.

After Ms. Draskovic filed a criminal complaint on 11 June 2009 against the above mentioned public officials to the Special Prosecutor, and on 20 July 2009 in a newspaper article ”Montenegrin chicken still arrives from Brazil” stated that she has filed a criminal complaint in order to prevent the activity she considered illegal and dangerous to the health of the population, the Director of Veterinary Administration (VA) initiated disciplinary proceeding against her and released her from duty, reducing her salary by 40%. Subsequently, the Director of VA made a decision on dismissal of Ms. Draskovic, which has been canceled by the Commission of Appeals of the Government of Montenegro a total of three times (!) during a period of nine months, and the adoption of new decision was required. The most recent time the Commission of Appeals cancelled the decision of the VA and ordered the adoption of new decision even though at the time disciplinary proceeding was already obsolete, and the proceeding was to be discontinued in order for Ms. Draskovic to return to work as soon as possible. In the meantime, after almost a month after the occurrence of obsolescence, the Director of Veterinary Administration did not confirm the disciplinary proceeding to be obsolete and allow inspector Draskovic to come back to work, moreover he scheduled a new disciplinary commission hearing for 20 May.

In order to ensure the right to freedom of expression and an effective legal remedy for Ms. Mirjana Draskovic, Human Rights Action filed an application to the European Court of Human Rights, as the Constitutional Court rejected her constitutional complaint. We believe that the right of Mrs. Draskovic on freedom of expression in the public interest has been seriously violated and we expect the court in Strasbourg to determine that, regardless of further development of the case before the domestic authorities and compensation which Ms. Draskovic will manage to attain afterwards.

Today we submitted the initiative to the Constitutional Court of Montenegro for evaluation of the constitutionality of the provision of Art. 115, par. 4 of the Law on Civil Servants and Employees, which stipulates that civil servants are, in case of suspension, denied the right to judicial protection, as opposed to other workers in Montenegro, which we consider the apparent violation of the constitutional right to equal judicial protection. As the Constitutional Court is not obliged to consider the initiatives of nongovernmental organizations, we invite all interested MPs to support this initiative and ensure that it will be reviewed.

Finally, in our letter to Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Svetozar Marovic, whose team of experts is preparing the amendment to the law in order to reinforce the protection of “whistleblowers”, we suggested that the amendment of the Law on Civil Servants and Employees necessarily provide the responsibility of the Commission of Appeals of the Government of Montenegro to meritoriously decide in the case when the first instance authority fails to comply with Commission’s instructions from the decision which cancels its decision. We remind that in the case of Ms. Draskovic the Commission of Appeals of the Government of Montenegro played ping-pong with the Veterinary Administration by canceling the decision on cancellation of the VA total of three times during a nine-month period, until the disciplinary proceeding finally became obsolete, although that is still to be confirmed.

Another problem is the ineffective reaction of the prosecutors office on complaints filed by civil servants who found the courage to report corruption – the prosecution has not acted on the criminal charge filed by inspector Draskovic for one year, which in this case directly allowed for maltreatment of Mrs. Draskovic by the reported persons.