In 2019, when the Draft of this Law appeared, and before its text was formally established by the Government (December 5, 2019), Serbian Orthodox Church submitted observations on 92 pages and we did not receive any official response until the present date, although we are an interested party (church with the largest number of faithful people in Montenegro) to which the text of the Law directly refers. The Government did not respond to us despite the fact that the Venice Commission made a strong recommendation on 24 June this year for preparing and adopting of this Law in an 'open, inclusive and institutional' dialogue, and despite the European Commission report for 2019 in which it was also advised that mentioned Law 'should be prepared in a genuine dialogue with the subjects to which it applies'. Two months have passed since that recommendation of the Venice Commission until Metropolitan Amfilohije received Prime Minister Markovic on the initiative of the Church (September 24), and since then another two months until November 26, when a single meeting of legal experts of the Government and the Church was held! In addition to all this, it is important to emphasize that Pope Francis sent a letter to the Serbian Patriarch Irinej and expressed his hopes that the Law 'would not be confirmed without the highest possible agreement of all religious communities in Montenegro'. This pope's attitude was also expressed to Montenegrin Prime Minister Markovic by Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin (at their meeting in Vatican, December 14, 2019) - but this had no influence on the procedure of unilateral adopting of  the Draft of this Law into the Montenegrin Assembly.

According to the mutual assessments of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church in Montenegro, this Law is precedent for including the property issues and freedom of religion issues into one Law text. It has been repeated several times that the proposal of both churches is the separation of these issues - but nobody paid much attention to the church's objections. There is no similar Law in the environment in which these two topics are included into the same Law text! Moreover, the issue of illegally seized church property by the communist authorities, after 1945, is still unsolved in Montenegro. (We still have no state regulation which would regulate returning of this property to its legal owners).

Almost none of the 36 substantial objections made by the Venice Commission against the Draft of this Law have been fully implemented in the final text of the Proposal. The property rights of churches and religious communities are radically attacked by this Law in a manner contrary to Article No. 1 of Protocol No. 1 of the Constitution of Montenegro, and the current Montenegrin Law on Ownership Rights, then the Law on the Protection of Cultural Heritage and the Law on State Surveying and Cadastre of Immovable Property.

This Law envisages discussing about property disputes between the Church and the state before an authority subordinate to the same Government and by Government Order instead at competent courts and in civil procedures! In other words, by such legal solutions the Government of Montenegro avoids the regular courts of its own state, and thus denies the Church to defend its property rights in its full legal capacity. And the worst thing is the fact that the state, through Articles 62 and 63 of the adopted Law, produces property disputes itself, affirming historical divisions from the ancient past. By this Law, 1918 was taken as a historical frontier when, according to uncritical and distorted interpretations of the past events, the state of Montenegro (Orthodox monarchy which, neither according social order nor according national borders, state ideology and national symbols, has no connection with the present republican order, secular and multi-confessional state) was supposedly confiscated property and registered as the property of the Serbian Orthodox Church! Since this is an unsustainable lie, and there is no evidence that an Orthodox church ever (even before 1918) belonged to the state - then the Montenegrin Government decided to bypass the regular courts, and to transfer the burden of proof to the current owners and users - but not at the competent courts, but before the institutions of state administration!

The discriminatory circumstance of this Law adoption, and we can say its discriminatory character, are reflected in the fact that the Government of Montenegro signed a fundamental contract with the Roman Catholic Church, Islamic Religious Community and other religious communities in Montenegro in 2011 and 2012, and that it intentionally bypassed Serbian Orthodox Church (although the Church insisted on this itself and on April 20, 2012 and offered its own proposal for this contract, on which we did not get an answer again) and this situation has remained until the present day. Thus, we came into the situation that, by adopting the Law like this, only Serbian Orthodox Church was hit by those provisions that confiscate church property, and according to which, only our Church has no possibility to rely on the civilization concept of a quiet and conscientious possession of the property in property discussions. This possibility is guaranteed to other churches by contracts signed with the state.

Along with all this, during the announcement and implementation of governmental activities on the adoption of this anti-constitutional and discriminatory Law, we have the situation in which Milo Djukanovic, the President of Montenegro, appeared at public meetings and at the congress of his ruling party several times, announcing as a priority of his state and party policy - the restoration of the 'autocephalous Montenegrin church’! This directly violated several constitutional provisions, the most important of which is Article 14 of the Constitution about the secular character of the Montenegrin state, as well as Article 95 which defines the jurisdiction of the President. And the much worse thing is that such rhetoric of the President has given a clear interpretation of the reasons for adopting such a bad Law. The reason is the seizure of church property beyond legal procedure, and the creation of some 'church' that would be under the strict control of the state.

It is unnecessary to say that this violates the provisions (Article 17) of the international Lisbon Agreement according to which 'the state recognizes the identity of churches and religious communities and maintains open, transparent and regular dialogue with them' and, in contrast, works to undo the already existing Church (traditional and with the largest number of faithful people), for the sake of the anti-constitutional (anachronistic, medieval) creation of some 'state church'.

Concerning all mentioned above, we can point out that the mentioned Law violates numerous provisions of the Constitution of Montenegro:

Article 6, which states that Montenegro guarantees and protects 'citizens' rights and freedoms'

Article 8, which says that any direct or indirect discrimination is prohibited

Article 9, which states that confirmed and published treaties have primacy over domestic Law

Article 14, which states that religious communities are separated from the state and free to perform their religious affairs, and that they are all free and equal

Article 16 which emphasizes that the Law regulates, but does not interfere with, the manner of exercising human rights

Article 17 which states that all citizens are equal before the Law, as well as Article 19 which states that everyone has the right to equal protection of their rights

Article 25, which stipulates that even in a state of war (!), when certain and temporary restrictions of rights and freedoms are allowed, they must not even do so on grounds of religion

Article 58 which guarantees the right of ownership

Article 77, which stipulates that the state protects cultural and historical values (among which the Church, its cultural heritage and its organization are certainly included)

Article 95 which defines the jurisdictions of the President, among which is certainly neither the establishment nor the restoration of any church or religious community