European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has declared inadmissible 70 applications submitted by women in Montenegro, users of fees for mothers of three or more children. The Court decided that their human right hadn’t been violated. Therefore, proceedings against the country cannot be initiated.
This was confirmed to Pobjeda by the representative of Montenegro to the Court, Ms Valentina Pavličić. She said that the Court hadn’t said whether it provided its opinion regarding the reduction the specific fees or their waiver.
“The decision has to be identical for both categories”, said Ms Pavličić.
Legal representative of mothers, Mr Budimir Minić, says that some applications have been dismissed due to procedural reasons.
On the other side, Ms Pavličić categorically claims that the Court stated that the country had reduced or waived fees for mothers in a lawful way.
“Somebody had the right to receive something, and then the right has been abdicated or waived, what’s the difference? We are talking about social benefits. The Court’s starting point was whether it was country’s free assessment to carry out its social policy. It was. Can a country do that for a specific period of time? Yes. Who can guarantee that somebody will be entitled to some benefits for a lifetime? Nobody. In accordance with the economic situation, a country has right to make specific corrections in that context, and that’s what it did”, said Ms Pavličić.
This decision, Ms Pavličić points out, is final and cannot be overturned.
Commenting on Mr Minić’s statement, Ms Pavličić said that the criteria were strict indeed but not too strict.
Ms Pavličić explained the procedure of application submission. Once the application reaches Strasbourg, it is referred to the single judge who decides whether it fulfills the admission criteria.
“There are cases where they request the Government to provide further details, which they didn’t do in this case. The judge stated that the submitted documents did not provide possibilities for merits”, said Ms Pavličić.
She can’t tell how many mother-related case there are before the court, as they do not produce such statistics.
Mr Budimir Minić, legal representative, said that the government had intentionally slowed down the procedures before domestic authorities. The Court makes the widest space in relation to all other rights protected by the European Convention on Human Rights and Freedoms, in order to maintain financial stability in the country.
In this phase, the Court might dismissed the application because no right stipulated in the European Convention on Human Rights has been violated. A right of an applicant might have been violated but, as it is not protected by the Convention, the Court shall not decide upon it. Regardless of the reasons why 70 applications were found inadmissible, the country will lose this dispute.
Mr Minić said that he had received 1015 inadmissible applications in relation to mothers he represented.
He claims that in case of technical omission, the court never returns applications for a correction.
Savković: We still submit applications to the court
Ms Željka Savković, representative of mothers, said that the Court’ decision was hasty. She believes mothers will eventually win.
“It’s obvious that the government and courts want to make mothers give up on this. I promise you, we won’t give up. They must admit they were wrong and bring the fees back. We will take this fight into streets. There are so many applications. Seventy is nothing”, said Ms Savković.
