The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance met in Novi Sad in the Independent Association of the Journalists of Vojvodina, within the Program for the education of journalists, which is realized with the OSCE Mission in Serbia, with a big group of journalists to discuss the issue of the materialization of free access to information. While pointing out that journalists and mass media can give a big contribution to a more successful transition course, Commissioner Rodoljub Šabić pointed out in particular:
''While it is great that we are continuing the negotiations, which were discontinued more than a year ago, about the association with the EU, it is important to already bear in mind, considering that it has been confirmed through the experience fo our Balkan neighbours, who have managed to achieve membership in the Union, that on the way to EU, one of the most significant requirements which will be made to our country, will be far better achievements in the fight against corruption.
The achievement of such results entails respective actions by the police, prosecution, courts and other government controlled mechanisms, but also action of the absolutely best preventive mechanism - the public.
All contemporary experience shows that transparency in the work of those who dispose with government i.e. public funds and goods and accessibility of information about their work to citizens, particularly through the mass media, to the widest public, is in direct correlation with a reduction of corruption. The public is the best preventive means in the fight against corruption. The greter the degree of publicity in the work, the smaller are the chances for corruption. The journalists and mass media can without doubt contribute to the fight against corruption by focusing on the acts and behaviour which point out to corruption. The anti-corruption impact of the public is so much the greater if there is a possibility to ask for documented information from those in charge. The Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance gives exactly this possibility and that is the reason why journalists and mass mediaa should make utmost use of it in their own and in the social interest."
