The Action has expanded the capacity building activities on the state administration, with the aim to ensure the respect of the reasonable time standards in the administrative proceedings. On 24 and 25 December 2018, in cooperation with the Human Resources Management Agency, two training sessions were organised for the staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Social Welfare.

The activities were held in line with the recommendations provided in the annual report of the Montenegrin State Agent before the European Court of Human Rights for 2017, and findings of the analysis of existing practices concerning the length of proceedings developed under this Action in September 2018. Even though Montenegro has implemented in great part relevant standards related to lengths of proceedings, violation of Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights remains one of the most often violated rights, with particular concerns persisting in relation to administrative proceedings and administrative disputes. The Strasbourg Court in several judgments against Montenegro found that there is no effective remedy in administrative proceedings and that Montenegro had a problem with frequent return of cases by second instance or administrative court to lower-level bodies. The new Law on Administrative Procedure, so far, has not offered enough elements to establish effective remedy for duration of proceedings.

Therefore, the Action is contributing towards capacity building of the state administration to effectively apply the reasonable time standards when deciding in administrative proceedings. The training programme provided participants with the understanding of how legal proceedings at the national level must be conducted to be in concert with the obligations under the Convention.

The activity was organised within the framework of the Council of Europe Action entitled “Fighting ill-treatment and impunity, and enhancing the application of the European Court of Human Rights case-law on the national level”, which is being implemented in Montenegro under the joint Council of Europe and the European Union programme “Horizontal Facility for Western Balkans and Turkey”.