Vice President Mustafić, a host of the constitutive meeting, on behalf of the Parliament of Montenegro said that the Council for Civilian Control of Police Operations, by its active participation in the process of monitoring the legality of work in a number of cases (e.g. demonstrations in Podgorica), has given an important contribution and objective court in the previous period, and thus improved the work in the subject field and contributed to raising the level of citizens’ confidence in police service.
- I believe that confidence is very important and it is not easy to improve it, bearing in mind some earlier periods, when the police were abused, especially when it comes to members of minority communities, Mr Mustafić said.
The Vice President of the Parliament of Montenegro referred to aspirations of contemporary communities in this field.
- I would like to emphasise the fact that aspirations of contemporary democratic societies are - ensuring the effective role of state authorities and bodies and effective exercising of all forms of control over the police work, which in our system is parliamentary, civil and internal control, and that fact is particularly important for Montenegro, the state which follows the path of Euro-Atlantic integration.
Mr Saša Zeković gave address on behalf of the Council members, emphasising that this independent regulatory body has given a significant contribution to promotion of public confidence in the police work and greater transparency of work, particularly in the context of clarifying individual incidents and abuse of police powers.
- In the previous period, the Council has given, by its conclusions and recommendations, a contribution and provided guidelines for a long-term increase of participation of minorities in the police, Mr Zeković said.