Source: : Danas
Parliamentary Committee on Culture and Information endorses report by Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic
Belgrade - The Committee on Culture and Information endorsed the report by the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, Mr. Rodoljub Sabic, concerning the implementation of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance in the previous year.Together with the report, the Committee also adopted Mr. Sabic's recommendations for improved implementation of the Law in the forthcoming period. At the Committee session held yesterday, Mr. Sabic said the public was becoming increasingly aware of the importance of the Law and more and more citizens were requesting information of public importance.
Apart from the fact that the Commissioner's office employed a staff of six instead of 21 and that Ministries lacked adequately qualified staff, Mr. Sabic said another problem was created by the fact that certain public institutions were still ignoring the Law.
“A law that is not backed by sanctions is not very likely to be observed”, Mr. Sabic said.
He suggested that the Government adopt an instrument designating a body or Ministry responsible for enforcing the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance and complying with the Commissioner's recommendations. He also explained Serbia needed laws that would clearly define state secrets and official secrets, personal data protection laws and laws governing the handling of secret service files.
At yesterday's session of the Committee, it was reported that, out of the 19 Ministries in the previous Government, only the former Ministry of Capital Investments failed to submit a report for 2006. The Republic-level Public Attorney's Office also failed to submit a report and most enterprises continued with the practice of withholding information concerning the salaries of their managers.
