The current asylum system in Montenegro was established on the day the Asylum Act came into effect (January 2007). The Asylum Directorate, a special organizational unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Montenegro, implements the procedure and makes decisions based on submitted applications for obtaining asylum. The procedure for appeals filed against the decisions of the first-instance authority is conducted by the State Commission for Resolution of Appeals for Asylum.
Since the beginning of the application of the law and ending on June 30, 2014, a total of 5872 requests for asylum in Montenegro have been submitted. The number of submitted requests for asylum has been continuously increasing since 2011, when 235 persons sought asylum in Montenegro. Already in 2012, 1531 requests for asylum were registered, and in 2013, 3554 persons requested asylum. The percentage of recognition of refugee status, i.e. granting of additional (subsidiary) protection, in relation to the total number of asylum applications submitted, is extremely small. Four persons received refugee status, while seven persons received additional protection. Currently, two persons with recognized refugee status and five persons with approved additional protection reside in Montenegro.
DISPOSAL: Taking care of persons from the asylum system is the responsibility of the Directorate for Taking Care of Refugees, which is a special organizational unit of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare. Care includes the provision of accommodation and an appropriate standard of living and assistance in realizing the right to: education, health care, social care, work, etc. Until the beginning of 2014, the reception conditions of asylum seekers were below international standards. On February 20, 2014, the newly built Center for the accommodation of persons seeking asylum in the town of Spuž, ten kilometers from Podgorica, began operating. The center can accommodate 65 people and has 27 employees.
The Center currently operates without clear legal procedures that should regulate the reception of asylum seekers, the records that should be kept in the Center, the rights and obligations of persons housed in the Center, procedures in case of disturbance of peace and order in the Center, etc. Daily communication between the officials employed at the Center and the accommodated asylum seekers is difficult because the Center does not employ translators for the languages spoken by the majority of asylum seekers.
THE LAW: The Asylum Law is mostly harmonized with European standards. At the very start, full application of the law in practice was not possible due to a number of shortcomings. The adoption and implementation of the law was not followed by the adoption of by-laws necessary for the implementation of the law and access to rights. Alignment of other laws regulating access to rights with the Asylum Law is still ongoing. Certain rights guaranteed by law, such as e.g. the right to social protection and education, are practically unavailable to asylum seekers.
With the increase in the number of asylum seekers, the problems faced by the Directorate for Asylum as the first-instance authority and the Directorate for the Care of Refugees responsible for housing asylum seekers have become more noticeable. Of the six planned official positions in the Directorate for Asylum, four positions are currently filled, which is insufficient to adequately process all submitted asylum applications. The Directorate for Asylum does not employ a male officer, so in practice problems arise when the asylum seeker demands that the head of the procedure be a male person.
Asylum seekers who come from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and some other countries are not provided with adequate translation into their native language. There are insufficient financial resources to pay for translation services and payments are delayed, which is why many translators refuse to provide translation services. The UNHCR office in Podgorica pays for a translator for Arabic, French and English and thus helps ensure that at least asylum seekers from Arabic-speaking countries can follow the procedure in their own language.
The Asylum Law explicitly excluded the possibility of conducting an administrative dispute, that is, judicial review of legality against final decisions, contrary to constitutional provisions. The absence of judicial protection, then ignorance of the institutes of "safe country of origin", "first country of asylum", "safe third country", are usually highlighted as serious shortcomings of the law. The law does not clearly define the moment from which a person will be considered an asylum seeker, which in practice may deprive him of immediate access to rights. The existing legal provisions do not clearly define acts of persecution, reasons for exclusion, unacceptable requests and procedures at the border. The techniques of conducting interviews with asylum seekers, analyzing the reasons for seeking asylum, determining the identity and origin of asylum seekers, inadequate explanation of decisions on rejecting requests and approving some form of protection, are not aligned with international standards and affect the fairness and regularity of the procedure for determining refugee status. The State Commission for Resolution of Appeals for Asylum, as a second-instance body, in practice confirms almost all first-instance decisions of the Directorate for Asylum.
The increase in the number of asylum seekers also brought about a change in the profile of asylum seekers. The number of women and minors, pregnant women and entire families of asylum seekers has increased. This category of asylum seekers is recognized in the law as persons with special needs. Asylum requests of this category of persons have priority in processing.
TRANSIT: The existing shortcomings of the asylum system are used by the majority of migrants who enter the asylum procedure, as an opportunity to continue their journey through Montenegro to the desired destination in the EU. Of the total number of requests in 2013, about 90 percent of the cases were completed because the asylum seekers left the country before the scheduled interview. In only 386 cases, the asylum seekers responded to the interview at the invitation of the Directorate for Asylum, so in these cases the decisions were made on the merits. Of the 11 asylum seekers who were granted some form of protection, four left Montenegro precisely because of the poor reception conditions and the impossibility of integration.
The entry of the Republic of Croatia into the EU has further complicated the position of Montenegro, which has now become a border country, so an increase in the number of asylum seekers can be expected in the future. The average period of stay of asylum seekers in Montenegro is 9,6 days. All state reports on the asylum system and statistical data support the fact that Montenegro is currently only a transit country, and not a country of final destination for asylum seekers. However, poor reception conditions and the impossibility of integration of asylum seekers affect their decision to continue their journey and end it in one of the EU countries instead of in Montenegro.
According to the action plan within the negotiation chapter 24, the adoption of a new law on asylum is planned, which should enter into force in 2016, so it is to be expected that the perceived shortcomings will be eliminated by new legal solutions. In March 2014, a working group was formed to draft a new law. The deadline for drafting the law is the end of 2014. It is planned that the drafting of by-laws for the implementation of the new law on asylum will be completed by June 30, 2015.
The author is from the Law Center
The Legal Center is currently the only specialized organization registered to provide free legal assistance to asylum seekers. Since 2007, she has been actively involved, through the provision of legal assistance, in the construction of the asylum system in Montenegro. Through the representation of asylum seekers, the Law Center points out the shortcomings in legal solutions and the impossibility of realizing rights guaranteed by law. Now he is also a member of the working group formed for the drafting of the new law on asylum. In addition to asylum seekers, the Legal Center also provides free legal assistance to displaced persons from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, internally displaced persons from Kosovo and Metohija, and stateless persons.
