On the occasion of addressing a number of journalists and media in response to their interest if the Commissioner was familiar with the content of the Draft Law on Amendments and Supplements to the Law on BIA, whose adoption was proposed by urgent procedure, and what his opinion regarding the Proposal was, the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection informed the public that the content of the Draft Law was known and that in the stage of the drafting, he gave his opinion twice about its contents, to the Proponent.
In Commissioner's opinion, several critical observations and warnings were reported.
The Commissioner's main remarks were related to solutions that regulate security checks and to resolutions regulating the mode of determining the data confidentiality.
Regarding security checks, it has been pointed out that it is very important that they be regulated by law in a clear and unambiguous manner, while, to a large extent, they still remain as unregulated, unclear, fluid, and that, contrary to the Constitution, instead of being regulated by law itself, the regulation of issues related to security checks has been shrunk to the level of a by-law acts of the Agency’s Director.
Regarding the manner of managing the classified information, it was pointed out that the solutions contained in the Draft Law are contrary to the fundamental solutions under the Law on Classified Information, which specifically regulates this matter.
BIA and the Government did not accept the remarks and suggestions of the Commissioner.
The Commissioner still maintains that the Draft Law contains solutions that are contrary to the Constitution or contrary to other relevant laws, and that their adoption within the legal system will entail additional confusion, which certainly needs to be prevented. The Commissioner, however, does not have the opportunity to file an amendment or any other instrument that could influence further legislative procedure. Therefore, any possible interventions in the text of the law in order to prevent harmful consequences, shall be the responsibility and a matter of the will of parliament members. It is understood, that the chances for the above are considerably lower if the proponents persist in the standpoint to adopt the law by urgent procedure.
