In his letters sent to the heads of the Journalists' Association of Serbia(UNS), the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia (NUNS) and theIndependent Journalists' Association of Vojvodina(NDNV), Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection RodoljubSabiccongratulated3 May, the World Press Freedom Day, to all journalists in Serbia.

Expressing his best wishes for continued success in the work of journalists and the media and reaffirming his readiness and duty to help them carry out their important social function, Commissioner RodoljubSabic also said the following:

"To ensure the media and journalists can exercise their function, which is very significant for a democratic society, representatives of the government and publicly-owned enterprises must adequately respond to their duties towards the public. There is some progress in that regard, but a number of problems still remain, which is why it is necessary to finally and appropriately activate the legal accountability mechanisms for violation of the rights of the public set by the law.

All activities of the government, particularly management of public moneyand large public resources are a legitimate subject of interestand analysis of journalists and the media. And it is veryimportant that the media deal with these activities on the basis of reliable and complete information and documents. Proclaimed principles of transparency of the government's work must be applied in practice, they must not remain only written proclamations. They put the government under obligation to provide much more pieces of information to the public in the most appropriate manner, which meansnot only on request, but in the first place proactively, by public presentation of documents and databases on the Internet.

Animportant, indisputable duty of the state must also be to ensure personal safety for journalists, which undoubtedly includes the duty of the state to punish those who jeopardize journalists' safety. In this context, one cannot avoid recalling it has been 20 years since death of Ms Dada Vujasinovic, 15 years sincedeath of Mr. SlavkoCuruvija and 13 years since death of Mr. Milan Pantic and the truth and justice have not been satisfied. It is of utmost importance that these cases are finally solved and closed as a guarantee that nothing similar can and will not ever happen again in Serbia."