28/04/2010 Session
Strasbourg, 28.04.2010 – The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) today called on the Montenegrin authorities to "maintain the current reform dynamic in order to catch up with the deadlines" and complete the implementation of the remaining post-accession commitments. In the meantime it decided that the monitoring procedure with regard to Montenegro be continued.
The unanimously adopted text, drawn up by the co-rapporteurs Jean-Charles Gardetto (Monaco, EPP/CD) and Serhiy Holovaty (Ukraine, ALDE), welcomes the country’s substantial progress in implementing its commitments since accession to the Council of Europe in 2007. It notes that Montenegro actively co-operates with the Council of Europe and "regularly asks the advice of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) in the course of preparation of legislation" and that the 2008 presidential election and 2009 parliamentary elections met almost all international standards. Montenegro has signed and ratified 67 Council of Europe conventions, thus fulfilling almost all the formal post-accession commitments.
Nonetheless the text asks the authorities to make an effort with regard to the reform of electoral law, of legislation on political parties, of the judiciary and of the prosecutor's office and in the field of training judges in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. It also calls for efforts regarding the effective implementation of guarantees concerning minority rights and regrets that a law prohibiting discrimination has not yet been passed. It points out that some groups in Montenegrin society, especially the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) community, are frequently "subjected to discrimination and are targets of intimidation and physical violence".