The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, Rodoljub Šabić, has sent a letter today in response to the document sent by the Chairman of the Committee on Judiciary, Public Administration and Local Self-Government of the National Assembly, Petar Petrović informing him that the Assembly Committee "decided to withdraw the proposal of the candidate for the election of the member of the Board of the Anti-Corruption Agency jointly filed jointly by the Protector of Citizens and the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection."
The Commissioner expressed a complete lack of understanding for this action of the Committee, pointing out that the relevant provision of Article 51 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly, to which the Committee referred to, is explicit and clear, and reads: "The Committee gives an opinion on the proposed decision on the election and dismissal of other officials, in accordance with the law ".
The provision authorizing the Committee to "give an opinion" does not leave minimum space for being interpreted as if it gave the right to the Committee to withdraw the proposal submitted by others, expressly authorized proposers under the law.
The Commissioner also expressed a complete lack of understanding of the "reason" given to ‘’explain’’ the Committee's act, which is tantamount to the statement that "Sasa Janković resigned on 7 February 2017 as the Protector of Citizens", because Janković cosigned the proposal much earlier, as early as 1 April 2015. In addition, Saša Janković’s resignation has long been widely known, therefore it must have been known to the members of the Committee 20 days ago when they unanimously issued a positive opinion on the submitted proposal, so it is difficult to understand that this suddenly became ‘’grounds" even for the change of the opinion.
The Commissioner also referred to the Committee Chair's request to submit the new proposal together with the new Protector of Citizens, "upon the election of the new Protector of Citizens", assessing that this can be understood as something that calls into question the normal functioning of the institution of the Protector of Citizens. Namely, even if there were justified reasons for submitting a new joint proposal (for example, the proposed candidate decides to drop out) there would be no reason to wait for the "election of the new Protector of Citizens". In accordance with Article 16 of the Law on the Protector of Citizens, the function of the Protector of Citizens is performed by Mr. Miloš Janković, with all the powers of the Protector of Citizens, since the law does not foresee any restrictions.
The Commissioner called for consistent observance of the law, assessing that it is only right for the National Assembly to declare its opinion on the proposal submitted by the authorized proposers in the manner prescribed by law.
