Podgorica: Protest Over Vaccine Mandate for Preschools

Montenegro’s Constitutional Court on September 15 reviewed the constitutionality of a legal provision that makes vaccination a condition for children to attend public and private preschools, while dozens of parents gathered outside the courthouse in Podgorica with banners, warning they would blockade preschool institutions if the rule stays in force. The hearing is being followed beyond Montenegro’s borders as well: measles, the disease the law was written to address, is highly contagious and does not stop at an administrative boundary, and a similar question, whether vaccination may be made a condition for preschool enrollment, occasionally comes up in Serbia too, where the Podgorica case is already being cited as a possible reference point for future regulation.

What the Law Says and Who Filed the Challenge

The disputed provision sits in the Law on Protection of the Population from Infectious Diseases and states that a child may attend preschool only if vaccinated, with the sole exception being children who have a permanent medical contraindication to a given immunization. The petitions challenging the provision’s constitutionality were filed by the nongovernmental organizations Udruzenje Roditelji (Parents Association) and Alternativa Crna Gora, and the hearing at the Constitutional Court was chaired by court president Snezana Armenko. Alongside representatives of the petitioners, the hearing was also attended by representatives of the Ministry of Health, the Institute of Public Health, and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Protest Outside the Courthouse

While the hearing was underway, a protest titled “Children Have the Right to Preschool” began outside the courthouse at 10 a.m., organized by the association Luca Slobode. The parents who gathered carried banners reading “We won’t give you our children,” “Since when are politicians doctors,” “Whose children are they anyway,” and “We are all Vesko,” and some of them said they had no intention of stopping after a single rally.

Parent Novak Raickovic said the protests would continue and that parents were weighing a more radical step. “We will continue the protests and we are considering blocking the kindergartens,” Raickovic said outside the courthouse. Nebojsa Janjevic struck a similar tone, saying the Constitutional Court’s ruling need not be the final word in the dispute. “The Assembly has the right to amend the requirement,” Janjevic said, pointing to the possibility that the disputed provision could later be changed in parliament as well.

What Was Said Inside the Courtroom

Inside the courtroom, Lepa Zunjic, a representative of Udruzenje Roditelji, spoke about parents’ fear of vaccination and argued that the existing law has not been sufficiently monitored. “We cannot fail to take into account the fear of parents,” Zunjic said at the Constitutional Court’s public hearing. Vesko Pejak of the NGO Alternativa Crna Gora presented figures on preschool enrollment: according to him, 27,000 children were expected to start preschool this year, and 16,000 of them did not enroll. Pejak cited the figure in the context of a discussion on the law’s consequences, without specifying how many of those children stayed out of preschool because they were unvaccinated and how many for other reasons.

Mirjana Vlahovic Andrijasevic, state secretary at the Ministry of Health, responded that the law’s goal is not to exclude any child from socialization but to protect children who cannot receive a vaccine for health reasons. “One parent’s freedom of choice cannot come at the expense of another child’s health,” Vlahovic Andrijasevic said. According to figures the Ministry of Health presented at the hearing, coverage with the first dose of the MMR vaccine among children born in 2024 rose from 13.2 to 33.5 percent, and between August 1 and September 12, 3,668 doses of that vaccine were administered, compared with 1,834 doses over the previous seven months.

The Question Raised by Judge Mugosa

During the hearing, Constitutional Court judge Nikola Mugosa raised a question that, in the view of those present, sits at the core of the entire dispute: how should the state protect the right to life of children who, for legitimate medical reasons, cannot be vaccinated, in a country where the immunization rate remains low. The 95 percent coverage needed for collective immunity is still a distant goal, but Ministry of Health representatives estimate that, if the current pace of vaccination continues, 90 percent coverage could be reached by the end of November 2026, when it should become clearer whether the disputed measure has actually changed parents’ behavior in Montenegro.