Podgorica, (MINA) – The Government will have the political sensibility to prepare a new law on the legal position of religious communities and freedom of religion, Minister of Justice Zoran Pazin has stated, adding that everyone who wishes to express personal views and contribute to the process is welcome to do so.
DF MP Andrija Mandic asked the Justice Minister in the Parliament on Monday why the government didn’t sign the Basic Agreement with the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Pazin responded that he welcomes Mandic’s support for the adoption of a new law on the legal position of religious communities.
He said that the Government has invested great efforts to support religious communities in Montenegro to build new and restore old religious buildings.
“The result of those efforts was also the signing of several basic agreements, with the Holy See, Jewish Community and the Islamic Community,” Pazin has stated.
The Minister said that the government is willing to sign such an agreement with Orthodox churches as well, adding however that good will of one side may not be enough.
“We also need mutual respect and understanding, which is sometimes missing when it comes to senior church dignitaries in Montenegro, who occasionally send public messages that do not acknowledge and insult the state of Montenegro. They also deny the existence of the Montenegrin nation and language,” Pazin said.
He noted that this is not a good atmosphere that would be encourage negotiations to conclude a basic agreement.
DF MP Jovan Vucurovic asked the Justice Minister why he described as unacceptable Patriarch Irinej’s statement that Montenegro is the Serbian Sparta.
Pazin replied that his reaction was a reflection of the constitutional principle and Montenegro’s greatest value as a community of free and equal citizens who are committed to democracy and civic society regardless of their religious or ethnic affiliation.
“You shouldn’t be surprised that any reference to one particular nation as being superior, older or more important than other nations will always be strongly condemned by the government,” Pazin said.
He noted that one form of nationalism breeds another.
“Recently we had an opportunity to hear once again the shallow, ignorant and brazen arguments about the supposed genocidal nature of Njegos’ works. That is just as unacceptable as the statement which I’m commenting on just now. And the pattern is the same, at first you make up a threat to a certain ethnic community, than you defend that community by causing religious and ethnic intolerance and rift,” Pazin stated.
The Minister stressed that the civic Montenegro cannot be built by introducing lists of prohibited books, like in the Middle Ages, or by declaring one nation in the multicultural society as superior and older than others.
“It is built by developing a society characterized by human rights and freedoms, rule of law and true democracy, because that is the benchmark for our shared European identity,” Pazin concluded.
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