The Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance was published in the "Official Gazette" on 5 November 2004 and entered into force on the eighth day of its publication, on 13 November 2004. This day marks 10 years since the Law entered into force and in that regard Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection said the following:
"During the past 10 years, while reform laws were implemented poorly almost as a rule, the citizens managed to turn an anonymous law, considered to be "cosmetic" by many people, particularly those in the Government, into an efficient mechanism to hold the Government accountable to the public.
It is my particular pleasure to say that "the citizens" did this, because although this law is indisputably used by the media, journalists, non-governmental sector entities, political parties and others including even public authorities, during this entire period of ten years, by far most requests to access information at all levels and complaints to the Commissioner have been submitted exactly by them, the citizens, much more than by all the others together. And the very fact that exactly the rather unfairly called "ordinary" or "small" man addresses various public authorities every day, now even thousands of them, is the best evidence that the full potential of the law has been recognized. The fact that many of these requests are properly complied with, in accordance with the law, shows that the number of public authorities which understand and recognize their duties towards the public is also increasing.
Of course, a significant contribution to affirmation of the Law, which they use as their "efficient" tools, is provided by individuals, groups, centres and the media oriented on investigative journalism, as well as NGOs the activities of which are focused on transparency of work of authorities and management of public funds.
During the previous 10 years, we also managed to establish the institution of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection as an efficient protector of the right to free access to information of public importance, not only for circumstances in Serbia. The citizens' trust in the institution is obvious from increasingly high number of citizens who contact the Commissioner. The number of complaints the Commissioner receives in connection with freedom of information has increased ten times in the previous 10 years. The total number of cases the Commissioner handled in 2005 was 437, in 2013, there were 4930 cases and it is already clear that in 2014 this number will be even higher. As regards the Commissioner's efficiency, he has had about 93% of successful interventions, which is a high and very noteworthy result even according to the criteria of old democracies. That result would be even better if the government and the competent ministries had not failed to provide support they must provide according to the law.
It is commendable that we are able to state that in the field of freedom of information we have a good, continual and irreversible process. But, taking into account the huge number of complaints lodged with the Commissioner, we must also state that there are still numerous problems and lack of understanding in the authorities' relations with the public, on elimination of which we must constantly insist and work.
