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ExpiredInterviewer: Mr. Rodoljub Sabic, Commissioner for Information
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Serbia is facing two evils - corruption on a horrifying scale and extremely low level of citizens' trust in public authorities. The best way to counter corruption is to be accountable to the public and to show maximum responsiveness to all requests by the public. The attitude Serbian Government has so far been taking in relation to requests for public access to certain information has done nothing more than to encourage law-breaking institutions to continue with this practice, says Mr. Rodoljub Sabic, Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and our interviewee of “Blic” editorial staff.
After the constituting session of the Parliament has been held, the following session should, under the Constitutional Law, terminate your office and appoint your successor. Why was it necessary to include this provision in the Constitutional Law? Did politics have the final say?
- The creators of that law have failed to explain this at the time and I think now the time has come for them to finally elucidate the purpose of this provision. It is not a personal issue. Whoever holds this office and shows some determination to enforce the Law on Free Access to Information will be an obstacle to those who have a problem with the implementation of the FOI Law. Anyone would stand in the way of those who possess information and decline to give it. The fact remains that much information to which the public is entitled has been concealed from it, from major investment projects to information concerning the wirings by the Security Information Agency in BIA.
To be more precise, who sees you as more of a thorn in the side - the law enforcement and security structures or the financial lobby?
- In my reports, I pointed out the Security Information Agency, which blatantly ignores the Law. They have not produced a report, the refuse to communicate with the citizens, they do not respond to Commissioner's requests, they even fail to abide by rulings passed by administrative courts. They create a number of situations that only do more harm to the already weak institutions.
Many have identified the allocation of Ministries according to party membership as the chief source of corruption in Serbia?
- Many things should not be subordinated to the interests of political parties, but in practice they are. This apparent feudalization is indeed a problem, but there is more to it. The heart of the matter is in the perception of democracy cherished by our political elite. Can we truly claim that we run public affairs in a democratic way, that we do not lord them, but manage them, if we refuse all communication with the public, if we threaten journalists and even assault them? This, more than anything, should tell us something is wrong.
The issue of ruling entire sectors is taking centre-stage as the new Government is about to be formed. Should political parties abandon the principle “one party - one sector”?
- It certainly is a better arrangement when people from several political parties control one another within the same Ministry, but even this is not the most desirable of situations. If you have three or four people who think they have to communicate between them, but are in no way accountable to the public, then we are again not getting anywhere.
Your Report, however, states that the Government failed to force a single public authority to give access to information?
- If a public authority refuses to give information, then it is incumbent upon the Government to force it to do so. Why the Government failed to respond properly is a question you should ask that institution. Whether it was lack of willingness or disorganization, I do not know, but the fact remains this is not done. The Ministry of Culture, as the authority responsible for implementation of the Law, has not instituted a single case of infringement proceedings against perpetrators, even though the Commissioner has served several hundred requests on it, which resulted only in more objections to answering the requests of citizens and the media for information. All this goes to show that many bodies saw this as an invitation to disobey the law. Whatever motivation underlies this behaviour of the Government, legal action is being taken and this issue will remain to be addressed by the new Government.
Are we facing a crisis situation because of a sheer lack of political commitment?
- Several key institutions do not operate simply because there is no political will and the true effects of this will only be seen in the days and years ahead. Never in history has political will outweighed the law without a cost. In an atmosphere of absolute lack of trust between political parties, where all issues depend on the will of one political leader or another, anti-corruption measures can hardly yield any results. Just to adopt the hundreds of thousands of law necessary for harmonization with acquis communitaire you need to have an operating Parliament. The fact that a country in transition has a Parliament that has not had a single session in months is more than worrying.
The Directors of the Power Company of Serbia (EPS) and the Oil Industry of Serbia (NIS) have refused to disclose their salaries, even though they are managers of public companies?
- That is scandalous; those people are not even aware of the situation they are in. Once those companies have been privatized, they will have the right to behave in that way. They invoke the provisions on business secret, under which information cannot be disclosed only if it is likely to cause severe damage to the company. I fail to see what severe damage could result from revealing a Director's salary to the press.
