Silence violates the law
ExpiredThe right to access the information of public importance faces a number of obstacles
Silence violates the law
On December 10 we marked, rather visibly, the International Human Rights Day. The day before was the International Anti-Corruption Day, which was barely noticed.
Just like everywhere else in the world, the Human Rights Day was the opportunity to organise various events and gatherings, give announcements and public assessments - negative as well as positive - of the state of human rights in our country. The fact that we got the new Constitution makes the ever current topic of human rights even more interesting. On that occasion, the Information Commissioner was obliged to state that the fact that the new Constitution guarantees the right to access the information of public importance is a contribution to the improvement of human rights situation in Serbia. Although such a guarantee was given in the view of a rather unusual, even controversial, “right to information”, its significance is indisputable.
The right to access information owned by the public authorities did not enter our legal order with the new Constitution. Serbian citizens acquired this right two years ago, with the adoption of the Free Access to the Information of Public Importance Act. In this way, initial preconditions for the establishment of an efficient mechanism of civilian control of authorities were met. As one could have expected, the idea itself about such a control was in total opposition to the dominant mentality. Traditional, conservative concept of the relation between the government and the public that prevails in Serbian bureaucracy, as well as the servile concept of this relation that is dominant among Serbian citizens, proved to be serious obstacles to the realisation of this idea. A lot needs to be done to overcome these obstacles, and it is fair to say that little has been done or, in any case, it was not enough.
Of course, there are some positive examples too. The recent invitation made by the Serbian President to remove the secrecy label from the reports of VBA on Mladic could serve as an argument for de-mystification of “the secret” and the need to make public most of the government work. Furthermore, the decision of the Government to make public all the expenses accumulated in the campaign for the adoption of the new Constitution is indicative of the Government's understanding of the relation between the government and tax payers. Then there is the court decision to “release” the book “Vojna tajna” (“Military Secret”), which could be an example of accepting European standards in the field of human rights. The only problem is that these are rare examples, bordering with a random occurrence rather than a usual procedure. Obviously, more needs to be done and the obvious resistance to exercising the right to access the information should become history.
Do we need a better illustration than the available data on the application of penal provisions of the Free Access to the Information Act, i.e. the provisions that should ensure accountability for the violation of the right to free access to information? Out of thousands of violations of the law none of them were penalised at the intervention of the competent ministry. In truth, some time ago a magistrate did penalise the responsible person for violating the right to access the information and failing to provide the requested information, but the court proceedings were not initiated by the ministry but by a determined NGO.
As good as example are the data according to which in around 90 per cent of cases the right to information was not violated by quoting (even wrongly) the prescribed reasons for restricting those rights but by completely ignoring requests to provide access to the information, although the silence of the administration when it comes to the application of the Free Access to Information Act is not only unacceptable but subject to various penalties too.
There are many problems in the exercising of a recently introduced constitutional right to access the information owned by government bodies. However, the phenomenon of “accessing information” owned by government bodies is not only interesting in the context of human rights. It has another interesting dimension. It was not without a reason that I mentioned the Anti-Corruption Day at the beginning of this text, which was eclipsed by its “big brother”, the Human Rights Day. I mentioned it because 9 December was an opportunity to remind ourselves that it has been a while since we adopted the National Anti-Corruption Strategy, and that even one year later we failed to pass the Action Plan necessary for its realisation. We joined all anti-corruption initiatives (GRECO, PACO, etc.), we amended a number of laws, we have had some spectacular police action which, if helped by the court action, may have been much more effective and yet, on the international Index of Corruption Perception we are in the company of Surinam and Gabon, sharing positions 90-92, with a worrying mark 3.00. This mark indicates that corruption is a system problem and that it is beyond control. Slovenia and Slovakia for example, did not see as many as police interventions. Their parliaments did not adopt as many documents as Serbian Parliament did. Slovenia did not even adopt the famous UN Anti-Corruption Convention. However, these countries take much higher place on the world ranking lists when it comes to fighting corruption. The International Anti-Corruption Day was a great opportunity to ask ourselves if this was because we were just so different when it came to the anti-corruption role of the public and to conclude that these countries, while establishing the transparency of government work and public finances and enabling free access to the information of public importance about public resources were also building efficient preventive anti-corruption mechanisms. To the less successful countries they have offered a so much needed “recipe”. It would be irresponsible and unreasonable not to try it out . Written by the Information Commissioner
