In his letter sent to Ms Zagorka Dolovac, Republic Public Prosecutor, Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection Rodoljub Sabic warned that the practice used by certain public prosecutor's offices, which demanded of landline and mobile telephony and Internet providers to provide communication listings and disclose other retained data without a relevant prior court decision, was unlawful and violated and jeopardised the constitutional guarantees of human rights.

The Commissioner pointed out that Article 41 of the Serbian constitution explicitly guarantees confidentiality of communication and provides that any derogation from this guarantee is allowed only on the basis of a court decision and this guarantee also includes the so-called retained data.

The Commissioner emphasized that any violation and jeopardising of constitutional guarantees of human rights was always worrying, all the more so if done by the very authorities which are meant to protect them, such as public prosecutor's offices.

The Commissioner also recalled he had already intervened in connection with the same issue in previous years, but the results of those interventions were obviously only temporary, since public prosecutor's offices had continued with the unlawful practice.

In this regard, he demanded of the Republic Public Prosecutor to issue a binding guidance which would advise all public prosecutor's offices of the need and the duty to conduct their work in strict compliance with the constitutional guarantees of human rights.