The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection said that harmonisation of the text of the General Data Protection Regulation the European Parliament and the EU Council is also of relevance for Serbia and requires attention of the competent authorities and their proper response.
In that regard, Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic said:
"Now we know what the common legal regime of personal data protection will look like in the foreseeable future in a large area comprising 28 states with 500 million people, which Serbia aspires to join some day through the ongoing integration process.
Our country also has a formal obligation to harmonise its legal system with the standards applicable in the EU, both under the Stabilisation and Association Agreement signed quite some time ago and under the Action Plan for Chapter 23; even more importantly, there is a pressing and very real need to improve the poor situation in the field of personal data protection by their implementation. A major assumption for this is the enactment of a new law on personal data protection. However, although the competent ministry has been "working" on it for years, Serbia still does not have the new law.
This is why I and my associates prepared the full text of the model new law and made it available to the Ministry of Justice and the Government in October 2014. The model law garnered praise and support from expert communities, both in Serbia and abroad. The Government officially announced this model law would be the basis for the new law on personal data protection. This was also stated in the Action Plan for Chapter 23 and the new law was slated for enactment in the fourth quarter of this year. I also talked to the prime Minister on two occasions about the need to use the model law prepared by the Commissioner as the basis for the new law on personal data protection and the talks we had led me to believe it would be so.
Unfortunately, the new law has not been enacted and the Ministry of Justice has recently presented the public with a draft law which has almost nothing in common with the model law prepared by the Commissioner.
This de facto means that the Action Plan for Chapter 23, which was harmonised with the EU, has been violated even before the opening of the Chapter. Even more importantly, the draft law prepared by the Ministry of Justice, which is of sub-par quality, does not provide solutions to any of the major issues that have been observed in practice; indeed, its enactment would create a host of new issues. In addition, it is obvious even at a glance that the content of this draft law is far from being harmonised with the opinions and standards of the recently harmonised EU General Data Protection Regulation.
Much time has been wasted without tangible results, while problems in the field of personal data protection keep piling up, which makes the whole situation very disconcerting. This is why I urge once again the Ministry of Justice and the Government to use the Model Law prepared by the Commissioner's Office with the best of intentions to support the efforts of the Serbian Government, which draws on the knowledge and experiences that certainly cannot be rivalled by any expertise available in Serbia."
