Citizens can submit ePetitions with 3,000 signatures
The “Citizen’s Voice e-Petition” portal www.epeticije.gov.me is active again as of today. Citizens of Montenegro can submit petitions for initiatives within the competence of the Government of Montenegro, with 3,000 signatures collected instead of 6,000 signatures previously required.
In late December 2018, the Ministry of Public Administration, recognizing the importance of electronic civic initiatives at the state level, launched the necessary activities in order to create technical conditions to activate the portal. Taking into consideration the proposals of non-governmental organizations to reduce the number of votes required for a petition to be accepted, the Government previously made a decision to reduce the number of votes needed from 6,000 to 3,000 votes.
Citizens can submit petitions very easily, in three steps – by entering personal data, the name and the text of the petition, and selecting the competent ministry. If the user has correctly entered the data, he/she will receive an email from the system with detailed information on the petition that is “nominated”, and information on the procedure that follows in the process of petition validation. In order to have more efficient decision-making on all issues of relevance for the ePetition process, submitted by citizens through the web portal, all ministries have appointed their Portal administrators.
If a petition meets the submission rules, it becomes visible on the ePetition web portal and becomes open to voting. Also, a special Commission has been formed to handle and decide on questions received from line ministries in the process of submission of e-petitions, made up of representatives of the Secretariat General of the Government, Ministry of Public Administration and the Ministry of Justice. In accordance with the Open Government Partnership Action Plan, the Ministry of Public Administration have planned technical improvements to the portal to be carried out in 2019, and to extend the portal to the local self-government units in order to create the conditions for submitting all petitions that may be of interest to citizens.
The “Citizens’ Voice – ePetitions” project was launched in 2012 with the aim of increasing the transparency of the work of the Government of Montenegro, i.e. implementation of civic initiatives, through a democratic model of submitting e-petitions.