Commissioner for information of public significance is acting on authorization according to Article 35 of the Law on free information access, and has petitioned to ministries of finance and justice, initiatives for modifications and amendments of Law on administrative fees and Law on misdemeanors, for the purpose of better implementation of free information access and greater responsibility for non adherence to this right.    

In this matter, Commissioner Rodoljub Šabić has declared the following:

„In the matter of Law on administrative fees, I have initiated strict exclusion of administrative fee payment option when it comes to filling requests for free information access.

According to the Law on free information access, and it is defined so in all relevant international documents, public authorities acting on filled requests for information access, can only charge the applicant for basic costs of copying of documents, and are not allowed to charge administrative fees. In practice, however there were misunderstandings and misuse, and so the Information Commissioner was often enough in the position to point out to authorities to illicit charging of administrative fees in theses matters. This is why it is good to dispose of any discrepancy by introducing amendments to the Law.

In relations to the Misdemeanors Law , I have initiated that the circle of data necessary to initiate a legal offence case against the person in charge in the authority, is narrowed down to those which are truly indispensable.

Namely, the Ministry of Culture in charge of initiating legal offence cases has informed me that a number of cases was not processed due to hang over they reached, since the request for personal data of responsible individual, from the Ministry to the authority was not received in due time.

Also in a certain number of cases, a lawsuit wasn't filed on the request from information applicant, because the authorities in charge demanded from possible plaintiff to fulfill his request with personal information of the possible defendant, which was objectively impossible.

Corresponding modifications and amendments are serving a purpose of better quality free access to information implementation. “