Source: Danas
Personal attitude
Rodoljub Šabić
It is certain that the name of the journalist of "Kikindske novine" Zeljko Bodrozic would remain permanently on the list of noticeable, valuable results achieved in the fight for freedom of expression in our country. He was once the first journalist and even the first citizen of our country who succeeded in an effort to have the UN Human Rights Committee rule on purported violation of his right to freedom of expression by a verdict of a court in our country in a libel and insult lawsuit filed against him by a politician. It seems that that success before the competent body of the United Nations would remain unique, because since Serbia has become a member of the Council of Europe, the citizens of our country have gained access to a closer and probably more convenient mechanism for human right protection - the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
This makes it all the more interesting - even on an international scale - that the same journalist (this time not acting alone) succeeded in the fight for freedom of expression also before this Court. Namely, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has ruled recently that Serbia violated the right to freedom of expression guaranteed under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights by verdicts for libel and insult against journalists Zeljko Bodrozic and Vladislav Vujin. It would be commendable if we took this warning seriously, but it seems that we will not and that there could be more verdicts like these, probably many more. Because, unfortunately, not only as regards freedom of expression, but other standards of human rights as well, the public life in our country is full of examples which confirm the size of the gap between the "state of mind" of many persons in our Government and the standards on which decisions of the Court on Human Rights are based.
These days I have been dealing with the case of the journalist P. Lj. He is the "subject" of three infringement proceedings because of a libel and an insult of a director of a large enterprise in his city. P. Lj. publicly accused the director of destroying and ruining a company, claiming that apart from huge operating losses the company also has huge outstanding public revenue liabilities. In order to defend himself against accusations, P. Lj., among other things, requested from the Ministry of Finance, more precisely the Tax Administration within that Ministry, information on the amount of the company's debt under public law. The Administration passed a decision under which it rejected his request. P. Lj. complained to the Commissioner for Information and I revoked that decision and ordered the Administration to allow him access to requested information. My decision was executed and P. Lj. finally obtained information which show that the debt of the enterprise amounts to over RSD 600,000,000 with a horrifying interest rate. The fact that the Ministry obeyed the Commissioner's order is logical, even in our country, because it is binding under the law. But the "state of mind" can be seen from the fact that it still considered it incumbent on it to "point to certain facts" to the Commissioner. It thought that it was logical to warn the Commissioner (probably because it was convinced that the Commissioner did not know that) about the fact that Article 27 of the Law on Tax Procedure envisages that information collected in tax procedure is kept as an official secret and that because of unauthorized revealing of an official secret, a taxpayer whose rights have been violated shall be entitled to claim indemnification before a competent court ..... etc. Maybe the fact that such comments sent from a first-instance authority to a second-instance authority are considered inappropriate in the entire world to say the least is not important for an analysis of the "state of mind". Maybe the fact that such comments are also obviously unfounded is also unimportant. Because it should probably be clear even to a complete laymen that the acting of a public officer on an order from final and executive enactment of a competent authority has nothing to do with unauthorized revealing of an official secret and, of course, with any resulting damage. Maybe even the fact that the Tax Administration "does not know" that no legal norm, not even those it invokes, can be interpreted out of context with other norms is unimportant. And it "forgets" that the Law on Free Access to Information, which is a lex specialis, expressly envisages in Article 9 that a formal status of "secret" alone is not enough to deny information to the public; instead, it should be evaluated for every specific case whether an interest protected by a secret prevails over the right of the public to know. But the way in which the Administration views the issue of "damage" is really interesting for the "state of mind". After all, would it not be more logical, since this issue is addressed, to take into account also the damage for requester of information, or of the entire public, when it denies it information of public importance? The damage caused to P. Lj. needs no further comment: is he to defend himself against it in Strasbourg? However, does not hiding and tolerating of non-payment of large taxpayers' liabilities have harmful consequences which are borne by all citizens, from those who are employed in a company who suffer because of non-payment of contributions to other citizens whose interest is to ensure normal functioning of the state by regular public revenues. The said imbalance between Government's "care" for an official secret and simultaneous ignoring of the right of the public to know seems to me like a good illustration of the gap between the "state of mind" and real democratic standards. The "state of mind" has to change. Otherwise it will probably produce more and more candidates for journey to Strasbourg. The fact that Mr. Bodrozic and Mr. Vujin had success in Strasbourg is commendable, but it would not be good if P. Lj. and others had to seek success there as well. It would be incomparably better if they achieved it in our country. The author is the Commissioner for Information.
