The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, due to the interest of a larger number of journalists and the media about the possibility of an appeal in relation to the accessibility of data on the reselection of judiciary officials, confirmed that the Prosecutors’ Association of Serbia filed an appeal against the State Prosecutor Council. The Commissioner asked the State Prosecutor Council to respond to these allegations as required by law, while the appeal will be considered within the legal time frame.

With regards to this, the Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic stated the following:

„The appeal of the Prosecutors’ Association is the only one that has been filed, but it is very possible that many others may follow. Namely, the appeal that was filed is not related to individual cases, it is a general one, filed because the Prosecutors’ Association asked the State Prosecutor Council whether it characterized its work as an official secret, as well as asked what the rationale was behind certain decisions and how those decisions were made, but received no answer.

I forwarded the appeal to the State Prosecutor Council and asked the Council to respond to these allegations. I will make my decision within the legal time frame, while at this moment, due to principle, in order not to be perceived as prejudiced, I cannot comment as to what the content of the decision will be.

However, I can say that the fact that the appeal was filed is very worrying. The fact that the Prosecutors’ Association did not receive any answer within the legal time frame is not comprehensible, maybe even, completely incomprehensible. This (wrong) doing is, among other things, not only an obvious, punishable offence based in law, but it also sends a very bad message to all interested parties when it comes to achieving the freedom of access to information. If the basic idea of the reform of the judicial system is to free the selection of judiciary officials from the influence of politics and rely solely on professional expertise, then the situation, or the need, in which the Prosecutors’ Association files an appeal against the State Prosecutor Council to the Commissioner for Information should not occur and should be excluded.