Source: „Danas"
On the occasion of Annual Report about Implementation of the Law on Free Access to Information
Rodoljub Sabic
Personal attitude
Recently, as in the previous years, the Commissioner for Information has submitted to the National Assembly the Annual Report on Law on Free Access to Information Implementation. The Report has been, I assume, already distributed to MPs, and all the others interested in the contents of the Report can find it on the web-site www.poverenik.org.rs in the column "Documents".
For someone who is for the first time reading the Commissioner's Report, it could easily appear as interesting. For those who have also read the previous ones, it is much less so, because in good part it deals with problems that the previous ones have dealt with, and which unfortunately still remain unresolved. For instance, each report has pointed out to the need that the Government of Serbia (three of them have changed in the meantime) should activate responsibility mechanisms for law infringement, and for, when necessary, enforcement of Commissioner's orders. However, in relation to that, practically nothing has been done. The same applies for the necessity to pass a couple of complementary laws, primarily about secret data classification, personal data protection and secret services' files. Only one of them has been passed, a couple of months ago, but conditions for its real implementation still haven't been secured.
In all reports "there are" also data speaking about generally inadequate relationship towards the rights of the public. In over 90 percents of cases complaint to the Commissioner is submitted due to "silence of the administration", actually due to otherwise punishable and prohibited ignoring of the request. And in almost three quarters of the cases, the information that has been previously declined is given after the complaint, already at my first intervention, without the formal order. So, it means everything could have been arranged even without a complaint. With a little bit more of good will, culture and responsibility, we could have more satisfied citizens, better image of the power, and much less complaints submitted to the Commissioner.
Even if the number of complaints wasn't really big, anyway the spatial, logistics and primarily staff resources that the Commissioner works with, must form a subject of all reports. I am already tired of repeating what those resources are like. Such that, when I spoke about them last autumn with Tomas Hamamberg, CE Commissioner for Human Rights, he thought at first that I was joking. After that he took me seriously - I should thank to that, that in his recently published Report, together with good evaluation of the Commissioner's work it is requested from our Government, besides else, to "give to the Commissioner full material and staff support".
Is it really necessary that the CE Commissioner should ask for that? Otherwise, at the time I spoke with Hamamberg, authority of the Commissioner for Information still hasn't been extended to much more complex personal data protection. That would be done a little bit later, by adopting the Personal Data Protection Act. So, with the consent of the Assembly, it has been envisaged that in the Commissioner's service in which from the beginning should have worked 21, after expansion of the competence on personal data protection should be 69 collaborators. For illustration, in the surroundings, in ex-Yugoslav republics, significantly smaller and with significantly less inhabitants, my Slovenian colleague has 30 collaborators, and Croatia and Macedonia only for personal data protection jobs have 45, that is 40 of them respectively. In Serbia, the Commissioner even today works with only seven of them. Do we need a comment for this (dis)proportion? What light does it shed on "efforts" of our state to secure EU standards' implementation?
Of course, there are many things in the report speaking about positive change. Complete statistics, for instance, regarding execution of certain obligations - submitting reports, publishing of the Information booklet, etc. is better than in the last year. But that can not be the reason for some special pleasure, at least relative progress should be considered as something normal, expected.
In the progress context, the biggest media attention has been attracted by my evaluation regarding the relationship of BIA towards legal obligations. BIA has for a long time expressed unacceptable, ignoring relationship towards the law, citizens' rights and its own obligations. Last year I have warned the Assembly that this is completely worrisome, that no one can be allowed to put oneself above the law. I have also insisted on that in contacts with new BIA management. BIA has in 2008 significantly improved its relationship towards acting in line with requirements, respect for legal procedure, execution of obligations and publishing information about its work. Of course BIA should still work on its relationship towards the public, but we can acknowledge the progress. BIA is just one state authority, but surely not any authority. Change in its behavior has bigger importance than individual, and deserves media attention.
But, it isn't good that one another phenomenon has completely skipped their attention. Not one media has glimpsed on the fact that out of around 650 annual reports from the authorities delivered to the Commissioner one can see that in 2008 almost 56,000 requests for accessing information have been submitted to various authorities. Over six times more than in 2007, and almost ten times more than in 2006. Data, of course, aren't absolutely correct (a big number of authorities haven't even delivered the reports, and some who have delivered them didn't keep records of the submitted requests), but are surely comparable with the previous ones. And they speak about increased consciousness of the citizens regarding the right to freely access information and an increasing readiness to exercise that right. And that is, out of all information relevant for freedom to access information, something which deserves the biggest unmatched attention.
