The Parliament of Montenegro pays a special attention to transparency and openness of its work. Availability of information is an important segment of transparency.
Article 51 of the Montenegrin Constitution prescribes that everyone shall have the right to access information held by the state authorities and organisations exercising public authority. The right to access to information may be limited if this is in the interest of: the protection of life; public health; morality and privacy; conducting criminal proceedings; security and defence of Montenegro; foreign, monetary and economic policy. This right is exercised by submitting the request for accessing certain information, which is responded to in accordance with the Law on Free Access to Information.
The Law on Free Access to Information (Official Gazette of Montenegro, No 44/12) was adopted on 26 July 21012, and came into force on 17 February 2013. In late April 2017, the Law on Amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information was adopted (Official Gazette of Montenegro, No 30/17) was adopted.
The Parliament receives a great number of requests, responding to each. In 2017, 94 requests were submitted. NGOs are most frequently the submitters of the requests.
Tabular overview of requests for free access to information 2014-2017
| Year |
2014 |
2015 |
2016 |
2017 |
|
No of requests |
161 |
46 |
88 |
94 |
Different kind of information are required through requests, mostly legal regulations, information related to financial operations, and various information from the domain of the legislative and supervisory role of the Parliament of Montenegro.
The Parliament regularly publishes on its website: requests, decisions and other individual acts significant for rights, obligations, and interests of third persons, as well as information for which access was granted upon request.
The said requests with follow-up documentation, as well as a detailed tabular overview with data such as: submitters of requests, reception date and answer date, number of items and type of response are presented below. Also, annual performance reports of the Parliament contain summarised data on the number of submitted requests with the number of items/sub-requests, as well as responses to the requests.
Law on Free Access to Information
Guide for Free Access to Information possessed by the Parliament of Montenegro
