Source: "Blic"
Journalist P.Lj. has publicly accused a manager of one big company that he has ruined the company, that it has huge outstanding liabilities, including those towards the state, and thus he has become a „subject" of three criminal procedures because of "libel and insult". In order to defend himself, he asked from Tax Administration information on that debt. He has been declined, and just after the decision of the Commissioner for Information he received those information confirming the debt exceeding 600 million dinars. During execution of the Commissioner's order, the Administration has however felt asked to also „show him certain things", to warn him (probably under impression that the Commissioner does not know that), that according to the Law on Tax Procedure data from tax procedure are official secret, and due to unauthorized disclosure of the official secret the taxpayer whose rights have been infringed acquires the right to require damages in front of the court in charge.
Otherwise, throughout the world comments of first degree authority sent out of the procedure to the secondary authority are considered inadequate, especially if they are additionally unfounded. Does anyone thinks for real that a legal treatment or following the order from final and executive enactment of the relevant authority is linked to unauthorized disclosure of official secret and with some sort of damage deriving from that? The Law on Free Access to Information, which is a Lex Specialis, explicitly states that the formal status of a „secret" is insufficient for denial of information, but that in any specific case one should evaluate if the interest protected as a secret is predominant in relation to the right of the public to know.
The most interesting in the whole story is the way in which damage is observed. "Care" for hypothetical "damage" is very obvious, but no one thinks about real, tangible damage for the requestor of information and for the whole public due to denial of it. And that should be taken into consideration. Also about damage that was threatening P.Lj., of which it is redundant to speak because it is so obvious, and also about slightly less obvious damage which is borne due to „hiding" and tolerance for lack of fulfillment of obligations of big taxpayers by both employees in those companies, because of failure to pay contributions for their insurance, as well as by all the other citizens whose interest is to secure normal functioning of the state based on regular state revenues?
