Source: Politika
People who discovered irregularities in their companies lost their jobs, they were even imprisoned. That is why it is hard to understand that the Governments Bill contains no provisions on protection of insiders, especially when "protected witness" is often a hardened criminal.
I recently contacted the Ombudsman of the Republic of Serbia in connection with the Amending Bill to the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance, which should soon be reviewed in the National Assembly, with a formal initiative to submit an amendment to that Bill using constitutional powers he has, unlike the Commissioner, which would protect insiders, or "whistleblowers" as they are more often called in the world. Because of the office I hold, I often meet insiders, or "whistleblowers", people who are ready to stand up to protect the public interest, to fight abuses, corruption and crime and to fight formal or informal rules on keeping various secrets for that purpose. Because of that, I know that those people, almost as a rule, face very ugly things and that they certainly need help. A person who disclosed the operations of the "road mafia" in the public enterprise "Putevi Srbije" was fired. The other person from the public enterprise „Zeleznice Srbije" who spoke about illegalities in purchase of „multicoloured" trains was also fired. The author of the book "Vojna tajna" ("Military Secret"), which documented that the activities of past General Staffs had elements of serious violations of human rights and classic criminal activities even spent some time in prison. The City Ombudsman in Kragujevac who pointed to enormous employment of staff appointed by political parties in local self-government was relieved of office. A boy who blew the whistle on financial malversations in the Secondary School Boarding House in Belgrade lost his scholarship. Since I have been trying to help insiders as much as I could, I know very well that it is not easy at all. An example of that is a campaign I had to launch for reinstatement of an insider who contributed to the uncovering of the "road mafia". I (barely) ended it successfully with help from several media (including a daily paper "Politika") and, of course, I was aware of the fact that assistance in individual cases is inferior compared to systemic protection of those people, that it is paramount to introduce provision which would guarantee these people that they will not bear the responsibility (criminal, civil, misdemeanour, disciplinary, ...) in relevant laws.
This was the reason why members of the expert group who wrote the Amending Bill to the Law on Free Access to Information, which was supported by over several thousands of signatures as early as in December 2007 and submitted to the National Assembly for adoption, included an arrangement for protection of whistleblowers in the Bill. Last year that Bill disappeared in a peculiar way, not at all in accordance with "our high administrative capacities", in some kind of a bureaucratic black hole, but it has nevertheless recently appeared after intervention of the Commissioner for Information and Ombudsman. Although it was never reviewed, the Bill and all that „fuss" about it contributed significantly to the Government submitting its own Amending Bill to the Law on Free Access to Information to the National Assembly. The Government's Bill took most of the arrangements from the Bill which was submitted as a civil initiative. Still, some arrangements were omitted. Not many of them, just a few, but, unfortunately, omission of these particular arrangements could raise serious dilemmas and lack of understanding. Omission of provisions relating to protection of whistleblowers in the Government's Bills is particularly difficult to understand. Because, apart from the fact that our practice provides reasons for that every day in terms of many specific cases, the Government would also have to take into account the duties Serbia assumed by ratification of the UN Convention against Corruption, the CoE Civil Law Convention on Corruption and relevant recommendations of GRECO, which formally require of the country to provide legal protection of insiders.
In any case, if we gave a long time ago a possibility to avoid obviously deserved sanctions even to hardened criminals by amendments to criminal legislation and introduction of the famous "protected witness" in the legal order, under the condition that they contribute to revealing and prosecution of criminals who are even worse than they are, is it not high time we protected honest people against obviously undeserved sanctions. Rodolju Sabic, Commissioner for Information
