Source: “Blic”
The Serbian public will soon learn every piece of information the Serbian Government has denied to it so far by classifying it as secret – from information on 10 largest debtors to the state, through information on five largest investments in Serbia to information on selling of the Nis tobacco factory, as well as all details on criminal proceedings in connection with the death of journalist Dada Vujasinovic.
“Blic” has received confirmation that in today’s session the Government will set out proposals for amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance and submit it urgently to the Assembly.
Rodoljub Sabic, Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, sees this step of the Serbian Government as positive. He recently requested to meet Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic to discuss the problems in implementation of the Law. On that occasion, amendments to the Law were proposed exclusively in connection with enforcement of the Commissioner’s rulings. Although the Commissioner’s decisions are binding by the law, no mechanism for their enforcement has been available to him so far. The law stipulated that “where necessary”, the Serbian Government would enforce their execution. However, so far the Government has taken no enforcement measure in numerous cases when it was requested by persons in whose favour the Commissioner passed a ruling.
“I warned on several occasions that such situation is a stimulus for offenders. I also warned that although the number of unexecuted Commissioner’s rulings is only a small percentage of the total number of rulings passed by the Commissioner, they must not be underestimated. Some information which remained unavailable to the public could have hidden or actually did hide very much “delicate” information. A typical example is the case of the documentation on procurement of “multi-coloured” carriages by the Serbian Railways, which the Special Public Attorney’s Office is currently looking into, although it waited several years after the Commissioner passed the unexecuted ruling to do so”, Mr. Sabic said.