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Venice Commission: State can’t confiscate church property

Foto: Portal analitika

Confiscating churches and their property, which has been planned by the Government and the 2015 Draft Law on freedom of religion, would represent breach of the European Convention  on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to peaceful enjoyment of a property. This was the opinion of the Venice Commission and OSCE/ODHIR submitted to the Government of Montenegro 3 years ago, writes Dan, a daily.

The Venice Commission criticized a range of provisions, especially those referring to confiscating of assets and the request for registering the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral, as the Commission itself believed there was no need for such an action.

On 27 November 2015, the Commission prepared the opinion No 820/2015 on the Draft Law on Freedom of Religion in Montenegro, upon the request of Ambassador Božidarka Krunić, Montenegro permanent representative to the Council of Europe, submitted on 24 August 2015.

The Opinion was first sent to the Montenegrin Ministry of Human and Minority Rights, but it withdrew the act before the Venice Commission’s plenary session in December 2015.

The international legal experts provided negative opinion/comments in 96 items within the Draft Law, and recommended many of them to be deleted due to discriminatory features.

New law for defining assets

Legal advisers of the Venice Commission and OSCE/ODHIR say articles 52 and 53 of the Draft Law currently determine procedures of confiscating religious facilities without compensation, which represent clear violation of the right to peaceful enjoyment of a property. They also underline that the Government’s explanations of 26 November 2015 haven’t been in compliance with the existing articles within the Law.

 

 

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