The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) held a series of meetings with the representatives of Montenegrin institutions, aiming to assess the situation of and support to the governmental and nongovernmental actors in Montenegro concerning the protection of human rights defenders. Accordingly, the OSCE ODIHR mission visited the Agency for Prevention of Corruption on 29 August 2018.

On that occasion, the representatives of the Agency, Acting Deputy Director, Mladen Tomović, and Head of Section for acting upon whistleblowers’ reports and the protection of whistleblowers, Kristina Braletić, presented the competences of Agency with a special focus on whistleblowers' reports and the protection of whistleblowers. They talked about the procedure for processing the reports and requests for protection, effectiveness of the Agency’s opinions, judicial and criminal law protection, cooperation with other agencies in acting upon the whistleblowers’ reports, as well as the statistics in this area. Deputy Director, Savo Milašinović, also talked about past practice and current cases of conflict of interests and incompatibility of functions of public officials. On this occasion, means of cooperation with the NGO sector and the media were presented.

According to the experts, during 2019, the OSCE ODIHR will publish the final report on the assessment of the status of human rights defenders, which will provide an overview and analysis of the results of all visits carried out within the first assessment cycle, including this visit to Montenegro.

On 30 August 2018, OSCE ODIHR organized a one-day round-table discussion, attended by representatives of the state institutions, the Human Rights Defender, representatives of non-governmental and international organizations, as well as representatives of the OSCE Mission. The representative of the Agency, Kristina Braletić, took part in the event. On that occasion, representatives of the working groups also gave recommendations to Montenegrin institutions for addressing identified deficiencies and challenges regarding the protection of human right defenders in Montenegro.

The OSCE ODIHR carried out visits to a number of OECD member states, and its representatives were in Montenegro from 26 August to 1 September 2018.