The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection completed an inspection of the Clinic for Psychiatric Diseases "Dr. Laza Lazarevic" and the Ministry of Health initiated because information and documents concerning the health status of citizen A.K. were disclosed in a television programme aired on "TV Pink".

The Commissioner found a number of omissions and unlawful actions in this specific case regarding the basis for processing and the manner of personal data processing and both the Clinic and the Ministry were issued relevant letters of warning.

As the Commissioner believed the observed shortcomings and omissions constituted infringements punishable under the law, he filed petitions for institution of infringement proceedings against the Clinic for Psychiatric Diseases "Dr. Laza Lazarevic" and Ms Slavica Djukic Dejanovic, Director of the Clinic, as well as against Mr. Zlatibor Loncar, Minister of Health (under the law, Ministries cannot be charged with infringements).

Since it was found during the inspection that the document used in the programme aired on TV Pink was a true and accurate copy of the original document which had been created at the Clinic and then forwarded, the Commissioner finds there is reasonable suspicion of commission a criminal offence under Article 146, paragraph 3 of the Criminal Code. For this reason, he also filed criminal charges with the competent prosecutors' office.

As the Ministry of Health stated in its response to the Commissioner's request that the information in question had been requested by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and forwarded to it, criminal charges have been brought against an unidentified official at the "Dr. Laza Lazarevic" Clinic or the Ministry of Health or the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The prosecutors' office should identify this person using the methods and powers at its disposal which are not available to the Commissioner and take further relevant steps.

In connection with this whole affair, Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic said:

"This is just another one in a succession of cases which demonstrate the poor state of affairs in the field of personal data protection and, even worse, the unwillingness of those with the power to change this situation to actually change it.

I would like to remind that, under the Law on Personal Data Protection, medical information is categorised as so-called particularly sensitive data, which means it requires special treatment and protection. Such status of medical information is further reaffirmed by the provisions of the Law on Patients' Rights, which explicitly state that a patient's medical information can be made available to third persons only with the patient's consent or under court orders.

Indeed, even if there is a legal basis for the processing of such data, this must be done by means that are appropriate for "particularly sensitive" data, including the use of special safeguards, storage and archiving. These measures are provided for in Article 16 of the Law on Personal Data Protection, which also imposes a duty of the Government to pass a regulation that would set out and govern such measures.

It is worth noting that the Government ought to have passed this instrument expired by the beginning of May 2009! The fact that the Ministry of Justice has never drafted this regulation in spite of numerous letters of warning issued by the Commissioner, thus delaying its passing by the Government by an unbelievable six and a half years (and counting), just illustrates the very worrying tendency of government authorities to treat citizens' rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws with utter disregard."