The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection will directly enforce provisions of the Law on Personal Data Protection in appointment of public prosecutors and deputy public prosecutors at the State Prosecutorial Council premises through authorized persons.

In this regard, Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic also said the following:

“Immediately after the document “Minutes from the tenth session of the State Prosecutorial Council” was made public, which among other things includes also a reference to “a meeting at the Security Information Agency premises dealing with collection of data on eligibility of candidates who applied for deputy public prosecutors”, I requested from the State Prosecutorial Council to inform me whether such meeting was held, what were its consequences and, if personal data obtained from the SIA were used in the procedure, to specify legal grounds for that.

Information obtained through verbal communication which followed immediately after that with the Ministry of Justice and the State Public Prosecutor suggested that the said data were not used in the appointment of public prosecutors.

However, a formal reply I received from the State Prosecutorial Council does not contain explicit answers to the above questions. This is why the reply and statements for the media given by certain members of the State Prosecutorial Council raise dilemma in that regard, especially because of references to certain legislative provisions in a manner which can be perceived as confirmation that they constitute a proper ground for the disputable personal data processing.

Any personal data processing without the knowledge of a person to whom the data pertain is allowed only in cases expressly stipulated by the law. Within that context, public persecutor’s offices indisputably can, in accordance with explicit legal authorizations for the purpose of the fight against crime and the protection of state security, obtain and they do obtain information from the SIA and other security structures which process such information for the same purpose, also in accordance with undisputable authorizations specified by the law.

But the State Prosecutorial Council is not a public prosecutor’s office; it is not a law enforcement authority. And no provision of the law stipulates processing of candidates’ data by the SIA in general appointment of public prosecutors and their deputies, nor are necessary legal authorizations established for the SIA for that purpose. This is why I have already emphasized, notably in a similar procedure in connection with the functioning of the High Judicial Council, that such processing of personal data would constitute a violation of the right to personal data protection enshrined in the Constitution and the Law on Personal Data Protection.”