Source: Blic
According to the law, the document on the organisation of the Commissioner for Information Service comes into force after the commissioner has prepared it and it has received the consent of the National Assembly. At the time, I remember, I was almost unhappy because the consent for the first such document took almost half a year. During that time, the Service did not exist, nor was there a possibility to employ anybody. Finally established, the Service started carefully, with several times fewer employees than what had been foreseen, which soon proved to be insufficient. But the alignment with the new laws, even if only for formal reasons, required again the changes of the organisational document. As well as the consent on it, but this time faster, for nobody could get hired now - the old document was inapplicable since it was unlawful, while the new one didn't have the consent. It appeared that half a year of waiting was “not so bad” after all. A year has gone by, the second one has started these days, and the new consent has not been obtained yet. And it has been longer than that, almost two years, without any effect, that the assurances that the premises for the Commissioner's Service will be provided on a “priority” basis have been given. And it has been even longer that the Government has not been looking back at the requests to ensure the execution of the commissioner's decisions, in accordance with the law, and to activate the accountability mechanisms for the violation of the Law on Free Access to Information. If the situation does not give the right to optimism, it gives at least the right to a smile. Frankly, only in the context of a linguistic ornament about the freedom of access to information and the functioning of independent bodies which fill out our “anti-corruption” documents. Therefore, the right only to a smirk.Rodoljub Sabic, commissioner for information
