Within the ODIHR visit to the Parliament of Montenegro, the meeting was held with members of the Working Committee 1 and the Committee on Comprehensive Reform of Electoral and Other Legislation.
Experts agreed with Vice President of the Parliament of Montenegro and Chairperson of the Committee Mr Branimir Gvozdenović to discuss the previous work achievements, but also the future steps regarding the reform and implementation of the Committee’s goals. Aside from this, the participants spoke on the practical solutions and harmonisation of the electoral law with other laws.
The two-day visit was marked by a constructive dialogue between members of the Working Committee 1 and experts, whereby the Committee’s work was presented and the activities conducted so far on improving the legislation were analysed through a thorough review of the proposed solutions in the Draft Law and clarification of certain dilemmas, especially in relation to the electoral bodies. They also discussed specific issues, such as the appointment of election commission members, verification of support signatories necessary for registration of candidate lists and resolving the issue of accessing the polling stations to disabled persons. In this regard, examples of good practice and compliance of the proposals with international standards were presented in order for the purpose of developing good solutions which would result in an appropriate application in the practise.
It was assessed that the proposed solutions were generally technically in line with the recommendations of the Observation Mission Report, but that the implementation of these proposals depends on the agreement of the participants in the process.
The ODIHR delegation was composed of: Mr Alexander Shlyk, Head of the ODIHR Election Department, Ms Yuliya Shypilova, legal expert and Raul Mureşan, OSCE/ODIHR Election Adviser. The meeting was also followed by delegated representative of the OSCE Mission to Montenegro Mr Filip Milačić.
On behalf of the Working Committee 1, the meeting was attended by - Coordinator of the Working Committee 1 Ms Marta Šćepanović, and MPs Ms Jovanka Laličić, Mr Boris Mugoša and Mr Neđeljko Rudović.
