Source: „Pravda''
The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, Rodoljub Sabic, explains in his interview for Pravda the essence of the initiative to legally protect ‘'insiders'' in Serbia, whether the domestic public is well informed on the issue and analyses the work of the Commission with him at its head.
What is, in short, the essence of your initiative to the Republic Ombudsman to protect the ‘'insiders'' by law?
- Often, almost as a rule, people in this country, who make available to the public appropriate ‘'confidential'' information on abuses, criminal and corruption, in order to protect the public interest, are faced with very unpleasant consequences, ranging from chicanery to loss of their job. Elementary righteousness and the reasons for more efficient fight against criminal and corruption entail that these people, the ‘'insiders'' or, as they are also more often called in the world the ‘'whistleblowers'', receive guarantees at the legal level that they will not bear undeserved consequences. Serbia has embraced the responsibility to provide protection of the ‘'insiders'' at the international level too, by accepting some anticorruption conventions and GRECO recommendations.
To what extent is the public informed on what exactly the ‘'insiders'' are, and on what information of public importance is?
- To a much larger extent than at the beginning, but still not enough. I have personally, within my powers, done all I could in that domain by constant public appearances, participation in educative activities of the civil sector, via informative website and the like. Many other people have also worked on this, the media have helped a great deal, but there is yet a lot to be done.
Were the data on medical treatment of the little girl Natalija Tesic, who has passed away last month, supposed to become available to the public as information of public importance?
- Some yes, in any case. Not the data that would violate the privacy of the unfortunate little girl and her family, but the documented findings of the Health Inspection by all means. Such information is a completely legitimate object of the public interest, especially after a publicly stated serious, and by actions of some of the responsible people, incited doubt of the existence of professional error.
What is the current situation with publicizing the data on salaries of public officials and the members of Executive Boards in public enterprises?
- Under the applicable regulations, the data on their salaries from public resources, that is from the budget, are available to the public, and the other are not. But there were also problems, and these data would become available, as a rule, after the intervention of the Commissioner for Information. And as of 1 January 2010, with the beginning of implementation of the Law on the Agency for Fighting against Corruption, all data on assets and proceeds of the public officials should be available to the public. We will see how all this will function in practice.
Do you think that the citizens should be additionally informed on the necessity to publicize information of public importance?
- By all means yes. The citizens should know that this is their right, and that it does not depend on someone's good will. Only the people who are aware of their right to know what the Government is doing can, by insisting on exercising their right, contribute to establishing a strong control mechanism which is necessary in a democratic society. Freedom of access to information, as it is confirmed by experiences of many countries, such as for example Slovenia or Slovakia, can provide excellent results in the fight against abuses and corruption.
To what extent are you satisfied with the work of your Commission until now, what do you consider your greatest success, and what a failure, if there are any?
- One should not evaluate one's own work. But I am satisfied I can say that the work of the institution, with me at its head, has received very good grades from, the Council of Europe and EU monitors, independent experts, journalists' associations, and, which is similar and happening on a daily basis, it is evaluated by numerous so called ‘'ordinary'' citizens. The most valuable result of our joint work is the affirmation of the institution, initially completely anonymous, as a public organ in which the citizens believe, which is confirmed by a large and ever-growing number of requests for protection of rights. Objective failure is that despite my efforts, I have not succeeded in animating any of the several governments, which have changed in the meantime, to provide full support to this institution. Such support would make possible much better results. Thus, even after the expansion of the Commissioner's powers to the new, vast field of personal data protection, though on the basis of the received compliance of the National Assembly, the Commissioner should have 69 associates, he actually has 12. This information is self-explanatory, and to my knowledge, there isn't yet another government organ functioning in similar conditions. If nothing else, this fact at least increases the value of what has been done so far.
