Source: "Politika"
The case of a general manager of a public enterprise in a provincial part of Serbia who will pay a fine in the amount of RSD 10,000 because he did not submit requested information to a citizen within the deadline of 15 days set by the law confirms that the authorities do not turn a blind eye to the mistakes of managers. The general manager could have saved himself from the fine if he had issued a decision on rejection of a citizen's request with valid reasons. The general manager was fined for infringement pursuant to the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance and the amount of the fine was determined taking into account the nature and seriousness of the offence, degree of responsibility, time that had passed and the fact that the information was submitted subsequently according to the ruling of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance. The fact that the general manager had not been sentenced or fined for last two years, combined with the results of determination of his financial standing, resulted in the fine - which may be pronounced in an amount between RSD 5,000 and 50,000 - being set at RSD 10,000 with rationale that the purpose of fining would be achieved in that way.
For four years, since the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance has been implemented, the Ministry of Culture has filed 238 requests for instituting infringement proceedings against public authorities because of failure to act according to requests for access to information of public importance. Magistrates' courts decided to fine the offenders in 124 cases and the amounts of fines were from RSD 3,000 to RSD 25,000. The maximum fine in the amount of RSD 50,000 has not been pronounced.
"A problem in the implementation of the Law is insufficient number of civil servants who supervise the implementation of the Law and lack of inspectorate service for work in the field. Inspectorate service is not within the Ministry of Culture, but within the Ministry of State Administration and it should become their competence", said Dejan Stojanovic, Adviser at the Ministry of Culture. He explained that all decisions may not be valid and enforceable and that responsible persons may file appeals. "Fines are individual and in state institutions they may not be paid by companies, while in private companies it may be possible." Amendments to the Law were also proposed in order not to punish only civil servants and ordinary workers because it is clear that general managers may obtain information faster. The Commissioner for Information proposed that the part of the Misdemeanours Law which requires that all personal data on persons subject to infringement proceedings be disclosed should also be amended because it is often impossible to obtain all data without field visits, which is now rarely possible because of lack of inspectors.
Rodoljub Sabic, Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, said that he publicly warned on a number of occasions that such functioning of the mechanism of responsibility, which was virtually only symbolic, together with the fact that the other mechanism extremely important for the implementation of the Law which also depended on the Government was not functioning, i.e. enforcing of Commissioners decisions, were (in)direct call for violating the law. "It is high time it changed", the Commissioner said.
Mr. Sabic reminded about the Anticorruption Global Index Integrity which has just been published and in which we scored worryingly low and were classified in the category of countries with high risk of resource embezzlement. "The problem is we scored worse than last year. That standstill is a worrying phenomenon I indicated only several months ago, as well as the Transparency International Perceived Corruption Index in which we also came to a standstill for the first time after several years of modest but acceptable progress. That trend has to change. We should make every effort to change those scores. One of the fastest, cheapest and most efficient ways is to improve the publicity of work and transparency in the use of public money and resources, by expanding the scope for free access to information. That also implies imposing more stringent liability for failure to meet responsibilities to the public, not only infringement liability, but labour law and political liability as well."
Mr. Sabic said that because of all this he welcomed announcement of the Ministry of Culture that it would institute infringement proceedings against responsible persons in all public authorities which did not submit annual reports on the implementation of the Law on Free Access to Information to the Commissioner. "I welcomed it as a gesture of a nice wish, but at the same time I expressed doubt that it may be done in reality. I have been warning for years that executive government treats the function of supervision of the implementation of the Law irresponsibly and I have been suggesting amendments to it. The Ministry of Culture has only one civil servant at disposal for supervision of about 11,000 entities which exercise power or spend public money. Not all of them have the duty to submit annual reports to the Commissioner, but more than 3,000 of them have to do it and only about 600 submitted reports. Anyone who can imagine what it means to collect data for petitions for institution of infringement proceedings against more than 2,500 entities knows that the chances that the Ministry does that are only theoretical."
