Change of Serbian Awareness Act
ExpiredChange of Serbian Awareness Act
Rodoljub Sabic, Information Commissioner
Citizens are interested in everything, from the environment protection, human rights, animal rights, and most of all - money, i.e. Budget, Budget realisation, public expenditures, public procurement, donations, salaries, wages, etc. Some two years ago Serbia got the Free Access to Information of Public Importance Act according to which citizens have the right and the possibility to ask for any information they are interested in and which concern their lives. According to the Commissioner for Free Access to the Information of Public Importance Rodoljub Sabic, this law is not just a whim and it does not serve to satisfy pure curiosity of Serbian citizens, but is one of the more important reform laws.
- The law is based on the assumption that the relation between the public and the government should completely change, i.e. that “citizens are employers” and that a democratic society is based on two simple facts. First, the power is gained and lost only at the elections. Thus, the legitimacy of the ruler depends on the people's will. Second, politics is not a grand historical process of “saving” your own people. It is a job that involves the realisation of very important projects the use of financial resource. The money is provided by the citizens who gave the legitimacy to the ruler. It is clear then that a citizen has the right to know what is happening with his vote, i.e. his money. This is where we come to the point where it is very worrying when a citizen's request is ignored.
What are citizens of Serbia most interested in?
- They are interested in everything, from environment protection, human rights, animal rights, protection of human and minority rights and other various things, even urban planning documents. There was no topic that our citizens did not want to know about, but most of all, they are interested in money. They are interested in the Budget, Budget realisation, public expenditure, public procurement, donations, salaries and wages. This is why every time such information is withheld it should cause a reason for concern. It is a fact that in 2005 the number of complaints received by the Commissioner's Bureau was 450 and that the number is growing in 2006 - by some 1700-1800 cases. This shows that the trust of citizens, the media and non-government organisations in the Commissioner's Bureau is growing.
What are your experiences as regards the application of the Free Access to Information of Public Importance Act?
- From the angle of work of a government body i.e. the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, I dare say some good results have been achieved. Even some very good ones. And these are not my words, because it would be a little arrogant for me to say that. We have received very good marks from the Council of Europe, European Commission, non-government organisations in Serbia and the media. No faults were found in our work. The number of those who think that there is a point in asking for protection of their rights and get the protection is growing. We have received acknowledgment from individuals and the media, which is also a confirmation of the fact that the information they have requested has been provided.
Should we separate the results achieved by the Commissioner from the results in the application of the Free Access to Information Act?
- The Commissioner, as important a link in the chain of application of the Law as he is, is definitely not the only one or enough for its proper functioning. There are other segments, extremely important in the application of this law, which, unfortunately, are not functioning at all. When we talk about the application of such a revolutionary law as the Free Access to Information Act, we have to bear in mind the idea it is based on, that the citizen has the right to know nearly everything about the work of the government - the idea that the government finds hard to get used to.
Aren't citizens the employer of the government?
- They are, but we have to bear in mind the history of Serbian mentality - patriarchal, communist and Milosevic-bred - which tells us that the government communicates with the citizens when and how it likes and provides only the information it wants to provide. This is why it is so hard to implement this law. It is necessary to establish a mechanism of sanctioning those who violate the law, and a mechanism of forced execution of decisions of the competent authority, when those who the decisions refer to refuse to carry them out. Unfortunately, those mechanisms are still not in place.
The Ministry of Culture and Information is responsible for the supervision of the application of this law and it is obligated to file a request for the infringement of proceedings when the situation calls for such a measure. Only my Bureau has sent hundreds of such cases. Although the number of those infringements was mcuh higher (there were thousands of them) to my knowledge the Ministry has not filed a single request for the infringement of proceedings. I must give you a positive example, though. Recently, the Magistrate's Court in Sombor fined a manager of a public utility for the violation of the Free Access to Information of Public Importance Act, but it was not at the request of the competent ministry, it was at the request of a non-government organisation, which suffered damage because the information was withheld. It happens, you see.
Kristina Vlahovic
Common problem
- Some cases have one specific issue in common. The Law envisages that, if necessary, when the Commissioner's order is not carried out, the Serbian Government should ensure that it is. There are a few dozen of such cases but it is indicative that, when the Government was asked to ensure that the orders were carried out, it failed to do so. This is worrying, and if we bear in mind that the Ministry of Culture and Information has failed to file a single request for the infringement of proceedings it looks very much like an invitation to violate the law, says Sabic categorically.
More willingness is necessary
- As regards the work of the Commissioner and the attitude towards his interventions and decisions, we can make some very interesting observations. Firstly, more than a half of the proceedings initiated by the parties were concluded after my first intervention. I do not pass a resolution that contains an order. What happened was that the body that the information was required from actually provided it after my first intervention. This situation could be improved with a little bit of willingness to do things immediately and the result would be citizens' satisfaction and an improved image of work of government bodies. Some complaints are groundless or illegitimate and as such rejected, but most of them are legitimate and grounded and the Commissioner passes resolutions that order the government bodies to provide the information required from them. It is a pleasant surprise that the level of discipline when it comes to carrying out the Commissioner's decisions is quite high and I must say that nearly 98 per cent of them are carried out without any problems.
