The Montenegrin ruling coalition MPs adopted early on Tuesday the changes to the Law on Religious freedom, while the opposition boycotted the session.

“Despite the opposition’s obstruction, violation of the Constitution and laws, the Parliament passed the changes of the Law on Religious Freedom. After a year, they corrected an injustice which the former government wanted to bring upon the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), treating and using its property as its own,” Zdravko Krivokapic, Montenegrin Prime Minister, said in his tweet following the session.

He added the decision made all religious communities equal before the Law and that it was a victory for the legal state “which the people defended in the street for 12 months.”

Mass protests

The law triggered mass protests across Montenegro in 2020, gathering both people dissatisfied with the new law and those unhappy with the 30-year-long rule by President Milo Djukanovic’s Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) which lost power in the last elections.

DPS earlier said the changes favoured only one religious community and one nation, i.e. the SPC and the Serbs.

Justice and Human Rights Minister Vladimir Leposavic said the discussion on the law lasted 365 days and that the people “almost as on referendum” demanded the changes.

The DPS supporters protested against the changes to the law.

SPC and official Belgrade backed the request for changes and protests across the tiny Adriatic republic earlier in the year.

Many observers agreed the dissent mainly contributed to the opposition victory last April, after 30 years.