Montenegro Constitutional Court strikes down NGO registration law

The Constitutional Court of Montenegro has struck down Article 18a of the Law on Non-Governmental Organizations as unconstitutional. The provision previously allowed authorities to deny the registration of an NGO if its statutory goals were deemed to be in conflict with the Constitution or the law.

The Court ruled that the provision was not sufficiently clear, precise, or predictable. It noted that the law failed to specify which protected constitutional values or specific legal provisions should be used to assess whether an organization's goals are impermissible. This lack of clarity, the Court stated, left an unacceptably wide margin for arbitrary decision-making by state administration bodies.

The ruling, initiated by the Podgorica-based NGO ‘Institute for Rule of Law’, concluded that the provision violated principles of legal certainty and the rule of law. Furthermore, the Court found that the measure constituted a disproportionate interference with the freedom of association, a right guaranteed by both the Constitution of Montenegro and the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court emphasized that freedom of association includes the right to register even if an organization's ideas are minority, critical, or radical.