Commissioner for information of public significance has directed a letter to all the ministers in the Government of Serbia pertaining to few questions of importance for the application of the Law on free access to information of public significance.

Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic has declared the following in this matter:

“I have few times previously drawn attention of the government offices to the obligations originated in the Law. Problems in applying the law, and particularly education of the new ministries and human resources, as well as changes in many ministries, seem like a good reason for me to repeat this.

I have pointed out three preconditions, very important for more qualified application of the law. The first is dealing with legal obligation of the management to authorize one or more persons to act upon requests for information access.  These persons need to have primarily, among other things the legal knowledge. Not appointing such persons, as well as the lack of adequate substitute in case of absence, has created problems in law application, or substantially complicated execution of such obligations.

Next precondition for quality law application is training of the employees on the content of the law, as well as on European democratic standards, the knowledge of which is essential for the quality interpretation and application of the rules of Law on free information access. Until now, not enough attention has been paid to this issue. Regarding this matter, I have drawn attention to explicit legal obligation of the authority, and to the respective obligatory recommendations of GRECO.

Third precondition for a better quality free information access is government authorities performing duties of creating and posting  on their internet presentation a document called Information sheet on organization, human resources, budget, means, range, procedures on effectuating rights, etc.

Regretfully, even though many of the ministries have posted this document, it is not updated, or it is done so noticeably late. In certain cases, it is performed as a mere legal chore of presenting scarce information, while some ministries still haven't even posted this document.”