

Church council in Podgorica. Photo: BIRN

The Venice Commission, a Council of Europe advisory body made up of independent constitutional law experts, said on Monday that the draft religious freedom law was a step forward, but urged the Montenegrin government to organise consultations with the public, including representatives of religious communities, amid tensions with the Serbian Orthodox Church.

The draft law includes a register of all religious buildings and sites formerly owned by the independent kingdom of Montenegro before it became part of the Serb-dominated Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918.

It states that religious communities can only retain ownership of their property if they have clear evidence of ownership, triggering accusations from the Serbian Orthodox Church that the government plans to dispute its holdings.

The Venice Commission argued that religious property must only change ownership after an appropriate administrative or judicial decision to ensure property rights are respected.

“The special administrative and judicial procedure concerning the property rights provided in the draft law should provide protection equivalent to the ordinary judicial procedure so as to comply with the right to property and fair trial requirements. Moreover, the registration of state property rights should take place only after the final decision is made,” it said.

The commission said however that the draft law offers significant positive changes to the existing outdated legislation and emphasised that the state has the right to impose strict conditions on the use of property in order to protect cultural heritage.

“The authorities explained that the transfer of the property of religious buildings and lands will not affect in principle the use that is made by the religious community of the property in question. This, in the Commission’s view, constitutes an important guarantee that the religious communities may pursue their religious activities in those edifices in line with their right to freedom of religion,” it said.

The Montenegrin government welcomed the Commission’s opinion, insisting that the state will protect religious properties.

But Serbian Orthodox Church priest Velibor Dzomic told Svetigora radio that that Commission did not approve the unilateral registration of the property of churches and religious communities.

“Regarding the provision [in the draft law] on church property, we have shown that we have been telling the truth when we said that there was no consent from the Venice Commission to unilaterally re-registering the property of religious communities,” Dzomic said.

The leading Serbian Orthodox bishop in Montenegro, Amfilohije Radovic, summoned a church council on June 15 in Podgorica to protest against what he called government interference in the church.

Montenegro’s President Milo Djukanovic has accused the Serbian Orthodox Church of trying to maintain its religious monopoly in the country.

But he also said on June 17 that that the draft law was not intended to baselessly take away anyone’s property.

“There is no intention from Montenegro to take away a metre of space from anyone, but [the country] also does not intend to let anyone steal what is state property,” Djukanovic said.