The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection submitted to the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia a request for authentic interpretation of Article 3, paragraph 1 of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance.

This provision of the Law stipulates that the following authorities have the duties under the Law on Free Access to Information: government bodies, territorial autonomy authorities, local self-government authorities and organizations vested with public powers.

The reason for filing the request for authentic interpretation are complaints lodged with the Commissioner against notaries public, which raise the issue whether notaries public have the status of a public authority within the meaning of Article of the Law, i.e. whether the duties under this Law include them.

Emphasizing that this was the problem he had already warned about several years ago, when the phenomenon of natural persons vested with public powers (notaries public, private bailiffs) was emerging and should have been addressed by amendments to the Law which underwent the assembly procedure in late 2012 and were subsequently withdrawn, Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic also said the following in that regard:

"The legislature was obviously guided by the principle that this status can also be acquired on the basis of delegated public powers when it laid down the requirements for granting the status of a public authority. The Law on Notary Public Service indisputably vested notaries public with public powers. Taking this into account, I believe that most of the methods for interpretation of the law (logical, systematic, comparative law, targeted) would lead to a conclusion that notaries public must comply with the Law on Free Access to Information.

Taking into account the rule that the legal meaning of a legal norm must be one of the possible linguistic meanings, the problem arises due to the fact that the Law uses the term "organizations vested with public powers". A notary public is an individual, an expert appointed by the minister; he/she does not have the status of a legal entity and is not an organization.

It is important that the Assembly replies to the open question as soon as possible. If authentic interpretation cannot provide an adequate answer, it should be provided by expedited amendments to the law. Anyone vested with public powers should be subject to public control, including of course notaries public. Otherwise, we cannot rule out the possibility that certification and subsequent permanent storage in offices of notaries public of documents which are a legitimate subject of the public interest could become an "efficient" means to limit the rights of the public."