The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance Mr. Rodoljub Sabic attended the annual counseling of Serbian judges called “Judicial Days of Serbia” in Vrnjacka Banja. Addressing the meeting with a speech titled “Freedom of Access to Information and the Judiciary”, the Commissioner emphasized a need for the judiciary to make a substantial input in the affirmation of the freedom of access to information as a basic human right and as an assumption for the exercise of numerous other rights and freedoms. Among other things, Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic said:

“The freedom of information implies of necessity full awareness of the duty of all public authorities, including the judicial ones, to treat all requests made by the citizens and by the public at large in accordance with the assumption that the public has the general right to know everything in connection with the operations of public authorities and that this right can be limited only in exceptional cases.

“In the modern world, this assumption implies even more. It also implies a duty of public authorities to proactively make as much information on their work as possible available to the public at large, without waiting for specific requests for information. In our day and age, the Internet emerges as an indispensable medium in this context. Presuming from this fact, I think the situation regarding Internet use in our judiciary, especially as far as Internet presentations of judicial authorities are concerned, is very worrying. The fact that less than 10% of judicial authorities have any form of electronic presentation needs no further comment. This is why it is necessary to improve the material and financial conditions necessary to change this situation. Furthermore, it is highly important for the judicial authorities to make maximum use of their available resources, especially of the skills and inventiveness of their staff. Some examples of electronic presentations of Serbian courts, such as the First Municipal Court and the Fifth Municipal Court of Belgrade or the electronic portal of the commercial courts' network, show that even in poor conditions it is still possible to achieve European-quality results.”