Agency for Prevention of Corruption

Press Release on the occasion of International Day of Whistleblowers

Adequate protection of the whistleblowers by the competent institutions is one of the main preconditions for motivating potential whistleblowers to report threats to public interest that indicate the existence of corruption.
March 24, 2018

The Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, as the institution in charge of preventing all forms of corruption, joins the marking of the March 24th, International Day of Whistleblowers. Montenegro is one of the countries that has regulated the issue of protection of whistleblowers through the systemic Law on Prevention of Corruption, while the Agency has recognized the proceedings based on applications and protection of the whistleblowers since its beginning, as one of the priority areas in contributing to the strengthening of the integrity of institutions of public and private sector. Adequate protection of the whistleblowers by the competent institutions is one of the main preconditions for motivating potential whistleblowers to report threats to public interest that indicate the existence of corruption.

The competence to manage proceedings based on applications as well as the competence to act upon the requests for whistleblower protection have been assigned to the Agency by the Law on the Prevention of Corruption, which applies from January 1st 2016. This legal regulation in Montenegro for the first time defined a whistleblower as a person submitting application on threats to the public interest that indicate the existence of corruption. The law also regulates in detail the procedure for submission of an application by whistleblower, as well as the procedure for filing an application for the protection of the whistleblower.

According to the legal definition, a whistleblower is any natural or legal person who has reasonable grounds to believe that there is a threat to the public interest that indicates the existence of corruption. Such a broad definition aims to motivate individuals and legal entities, if they have reasonable grounds to believe that there is a threat to the public interest that indicates the existence of corruption, to report it.

In the course of two years, the Agency received a total of 115 applications by whistleblowers on threat of the public interest that indicate the existence of corruption, while 27 procedures were initiated ex officio. So far, the Agency has identified the existence of a public interest threat in 21 cases. It is important to point out that out of the total number of applications, almost 31% of the applications refer to the reporting of violations of rights arising from labor relations, and in this sense, special attention will be given to this area in the forthcoming period.

Through the ex officio procedures initiated by the Agency, the Agency found that 98 public companies, public institutions and other legal entities whose majority owner or founder is the state / municipality published a total of 417 advertisements in 2017, out of which 373 were for one days and 44 days at weekends, for 714 vacancies.

Following the conducted procedures and given recommendations of the Agency, corruption risks were significantly eliminated in the field of employment in the second half of 2017, so, for example, in the last quarter, only six institutions published advertisements of that type.

During this period, 11 whistleblowers submitted to the Agency requests for protection, out of which, for now, in four cases it has been established that the protection requirements have been founded and recommendations for the elimination or prevention of damage have been provided, while in six cases the protection claims have not been submitted in accordance with the law, or in the procedure the existence of a cause-effect relationship between the damage incurred and the filing of the application has not been recognized. One procedure is still in progress.

The institutions that received recommendations for the elimination or prevention of the of the damage, implemented them within the deadline set by the Agency or after the warning of the body that supervises their work, again at the initiative of the Agency. Of the 11 whistleblowers who applied for protection to the Agency, six of them submitted the application directly to this institution, while in other cases the application was submitted to other competent authorities. According to the applications of whistleblowers whose requests for protection are based on the opinion of the Agency, there are currently three applications before the Special State Prosecutor's Office at the examination phase, while in one case the Agency has determined the existence of a threat to the public interest with prior inspection by the competent inspection, while in two cases citing from the application, according to the Agency's assessment, were not founded.

We believe that the citizens recognized the efforts of the Agency in the area of ​​prevention of the threat of public interest indicating the existence of corruption. Already in the first quarter of 2018, the Agency received over 30 whistleblowers' reports, which confirms the validity of data from the regular annual survey "Public attitudes about corruption and familiarity with the work of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption", so that the highest percentage of citizens would report corruption to the Agency.

We are aware that without well-designed procedures for reporting corruption and without the trust of employees in their effectiveness and professional implementation, integrity and ethics within institutions cannot be achieved. In the past work, the Agency has used all the competencies available to it in order to adequately protect the whistleblowers and thus encourage them to report corruption sincerely. Nevertheless, with all the experiences we have encountered in the first two years of our work, it seems particularly important to point out that the construction of professionalism, individual integrity and institutional integrity, as well as the reduction of the risk of exercising public powers contrary to the purpose for which they are established, requires coordinated work and that the Agency needs the support of all stakeholders in this process.

In addition to other bodies responsible for dealing with reporting corruption, it involves the active involvement of all state bodies, their management and employees, the civil sector and the media. In this sense, it is our task to try to create an environment in which each employee will have awareness of the timely response to the risks we face in the everyday work of the obligations of all of us and that reporting corruption, when done in good faith, focused on strengthening, not on the weakening of the institution and its integrity.

As a symbolic contribution to the celebration of the International Day of Whistleblowers, the Agency's employees joined the voluntary blood donation campaign at the Blood Transfusion Institute of Montenegro.

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