First they hide the information and than they sue
ExpiredFirst they hide the information and than they sue
For two full years the Serbian Government has obstructed the Law on Access to Information. There is nothing that obligates a state body or an official to make a requested piece of information public. They use the Commissioner to point the finger at democracy. Obvious example - the case of JAT Airways and Glas javnosti.
BELGRADE - Although the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance was adopted as far back as on 13 November 2004, the Government of Serbia has not yet appointed either a person or a body that would enable the appropriate execution of the Commissioner's resolutions in practice.
In fact, according to Article 28 of the Law, the Government is obligated to provide the execution of the Commissioner's resolution when government bodies refuse to act upon it. However, in the past two years that the law has been effective, the Government has not met this obligation even once and failed to protect the right to access information. Instead, citizens would go to Nemanjina 11 with this request and leave it with a piece of paper saying that their request has been duly registered and that it will be processed when the responsible person or body has been appointed. This was the situation in 2004 and nothing changed in 2007, except that you do not even get the receipt.
Why did not they appoint the person in charge? Why, in 800 days, which is how long the right has existed, the Serbian Government did not find it necessary to act according to the regulation it had passed itself?
In the story about pointing the finger at democracy this is the clearest paradigm of sabotaging the law.
In order to meet European requirements, the state guarantees a right and then does everything it can to obstruct the observance of that right in practice. One of the latest examples is the case of Glas javnosti and JAT Airways. In short, JAT was ordered by the Commissioner to provide Glas javnosti with a copy of the contract on purchase of eight aircrafts from Airbus, concluded in 1998. However, JAT refused to provide the documentation and brought charges before the Supreme Court of Serbia, which is not even legally prescribed and it cannot postpone the execution of the Commissioners resolution. Nevertheless, since our request that the Government ensures that JAT abides by the law was ignored, this obstruction has every chance to be successful and unpunished, at least until the case opens before the Supreme Court.
With regard to this case, Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic says that the Government paper from the registrar is “illustrative of at least two major problems in the application of the Law on Access to Information, both quite obvious in the case of Glas.
“First, before we filed a request to the Serbian Government to ensure the execution of Commissioner's resolution, JAT asked the Government to postpone the execution, stating that they had to wait for the ruling of the Supreme Court, says Sabic, adding that JAT is not the first one to do this - there are, in fact, around a dozen of similar cases.
According to Sabic, „Bringing charges in this case shows the wrong interpretation of Article 27 of the Law which reads, “Administrative procedure can be initiated against the Commissioner's resolution,” meaning - albeit it was not explicitly said - that this right is reserved exclusively for the person who has requested the information.
“In the procedure of granting the access to information, the right of the information seeker has the priority. The information keeper who declines to provide the information is doing so as the government body of first instance and, of course, it cannot initiate an administrative procedure against a body of second instance, i.e. the Commissioner. So far, the Supreme Court has rejected all charges against the Commissioner's resolutions as unlawful. However, the charges are piling up, obviously with the idea to postpone the publicizing of information, explains Sabic. He added that, considering the situation, those who do not want to meet their obligation do not need the whole construction with the unlawful suit, or a request to postpone the execution. They can just not do what they have been ordered without a risk that they might be forced to do it.
“According to the law the Commissioner's resolutions are binding, and if necessary the execution is ensured by the Government, which is not only authorised but also obligated to do it. Nevertheless, the Government has not established a mechanism to do this and has repeatedly failed to ensure that the resolutions are executed. This is a serious problem,” concludes Sabic reminding us that he has “sent formal initiatives to the Government twice in the past two years but, unfortunately, it to no avail.”
