Synopsis "Montenegro: Human Rights"
Montenegro is a mixed parliamentary and presidential republic with a multiparty political system. Both the president and the unicameral parliament (the Assembly) are popularly elected. The president nominates, and parliament approves, the prime minister. On April 7, the country held presidential elections, which the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), through a limited observer mission, described as professionally and efficiently administered. The OSCE mission's final report noted, however, a blurring of the lines between state and party. With relatively close results and both candidates declaring victory on election night, the decision by the State Election Commission to delay the release of preliminary results caused public uncertainty and raised doubts among citizens about the integrity of the process. Authorities maintained effective control over the security forces in most cases. Security forces committed some human rights abuses during the year. Pervasive corruption - marked by nepotism, political favoritism, and weak controls over conflicts of interest in all branches of the government - represented the country's most serious human rights problem. A second major problem was societal discrimination and violence against minorities, including the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, and the Romani, Ashkali, and Egyptian ethnic minorities, which had the effect of stigmatizing these populations. A third major problem was the chilling effect on freedom of expression created by the continuing harassment of journalists and the failure to resolve several past cases of violence and threats against journalists and government critics. Other human rights problems included police mistreatment of persons in their custody; overcrowded and dilapidated prisons and pretrial detention conditions that at times threatened health; instances of lengthy pretrial detention; warrantless government surveillance that violated citizens' privacy rights; limits on the freedom of assembly; the unresolved legal status of thousands of refugees from the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s; tensions between religious groups over property issues and status; several instances of vandalism of religious symbols and property; denial of residency permits and visas to some clergy of the Serbian Orthodox Church; denial of public access to government information; child marriage among Roma; discrimination against persons with disabilities; and trafficking in persons. There were also reports of employer infringement upon workers' rights and of child labor.
