**The Union of Municipalities of Montenegro** organized a training session entitled **"Administrative Court Case Law on the Costs of Administrative Proceedings"** for employees of local tax authorities, chief administrators, and other municipal officials responsible for deciding on requests for free access to information. The training brought together more than **50 participants**, highlighting the importance of this issue for municipalities and, ultimately, for citizens. According to the organizers, certain lawyers and NGOs have systematically exploited legal provisions and procedural rights, resulting in millions of euros being diverted from local budgets—funds that would otherwise be used for public services, infrastructure, and other community needs. This practice, which has become increasingly widespread over the past decade, underscores the urgent need for legislative amendments to close these loopholes, as well as for disciplinary proceedings against lawyers found to have breached professional ethics and, where appropriate, criminal investigations.
The training was delivered by judges of the Administrative Court Davor Stojković and Vladimir Orović, using concrete case examples, the trainers demonstrated common forms of abuse and explained the courts' positions on these issues. One example involves property tax assessments where the tax is initially set at a very low amount and, following an appeal, is reduced by only a few cents in the repeated administrative procedure. In such cases, lawyers often become involved solely to claim legal fees under the attorney fee schedule, which can amount to several thousand euros per case. The scale of this practice is illustrated by a recent example in which a well-known law firm filed 80 nearly identical appeals simultaneously, claiming reimbursement for attending hearings and submitting statements on the findings of the administrative procedure. These claims amounted to a minimum of €800 per case, resulting in potential legal fees of €64,000 from a single coordinated action. Additional examples included lawsuits filed without a valid power of attorney or cases where a power of attorney issued for one matter was improperly used in unrelated proceedings. The organizers also raised concerns about how certain law firms obtain such a large number of clients willing to grant powers of attorney. They stressed that this issue should be thoroughly investigated in cooperation with the Montenegrin Bar Association, which has a responsibility to protect the integrity of the legal profession and prevent its misuse.
Examples of the misuse of the right of access to public information were also discussed during the training. According to the examples presented, a single lawyer from Podgorica is expected to recover approximately €3 million in legal fees through such proceedings. The speakers argued that these cases are not primarily the result of administrative silence, but rather of the misuse of legal procedures. As an illustration, they noted that, in some instances, as many as 1,000 standardized requests are submitted in a single day, seeking outdated or non-existent information that public authorities are required to process within a short statutory deadline. As a consequence, the Administrative Court reportedly handles around 13,000 cases each year related to access-to-information requests. By comparison, the equivalent number of such cases in Slovenia is just over 100 annually.
The training also examined procedural mechanisms that could help prevent these abuses and protect local budgets, particularly in cases involving proceedings to amend final and enforceable administrative decisions after the Constitutional Court declares a regulation to be inconsistent with the law.
The Union of Municipalities of Montenegro has submitted proposed legislative amendments to the Ministry of Finance aimed at preventing these abuses in the field of local taxation, as well as proposed amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information to the Ministry of Public Administration and the Parliament of Montenegro. The revised tax legislation is expected to be adopted by the end of this year, as the Union and the Ministry of Finance have reached agreement on the majority of the proposed solutions. The Union has also initiated amendments to reduce attorneys' fees in administrative proceedings and disputes; however, the Montenegrin Bar Association has not responded to this initiative. With regard to the Law on Free Access to Information, the Union stated that, despite its efforts, it was unable to influence the proposed amendments. As a result, it warned that local governments may continue to face significant financial burdens arising from the misuse of access-to-information procedures by certain non-governmental organizations and their legal representatives.
