Since 2022, the Union of Municipalities of Montenegro has been submitting initiatives for the adoption of a separate law on public cemeteries and burials, to which the previous two Governments did not respond. We therefore support the publicly stated position of Prime Minister Milojka Spajića on the need to draft this important piece of legislation.
We recall that the Union of Municipalities of Montenegro submitted its most recent initiative on this matter in August 2024 to the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Northern Development.
“Montenegro does not have a substantive law governing burial matters. The Law on Municipal Services generally provides that the maintenance of public cemeteries and burial services constitute a municipal service whose provision is ensured by local government units. However, due to the absence of a substantive law regulating this highly sensitive area, in practice there are undefined or insufficiently defined issues concerning ownership of or the right to use burial plots, the right to burial in a cemetery, health-related aspects of burial, the transportation of the remains of Montenegrin citizens who die outside Montenegro, the financing of the maintenance of rural and suburban cemeteries, and other matters. This often results in court proceedings that are extremely distressing for all those involved,” stated the Secretary General of the Union of Municipalities of Montenegro Mišela Manojlović in the reasoning accompanying the initiative, adding that all countries in the region have specific laws governing this area.
Manojlović expressed the Union of Municipalities’ readiness, in accordance with the Agreement signed with the Government of Montenegro, to actively participate in the working group to be established by the Minister for the preparation of the draft law.
We recall that Prime Minister Milojko Spajić announced on the social media platform X that this issue would be regulated by a separate law on cemeteries.
“The competent ministry will invite all interested stakeholders and establish a working group that will draft the law by the end of the year,” Prime Minister Milojko Spajić stated in his post.
