Source: “Politika”
By means of amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information in an expedited procedure, the Government vested Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic with the power to determine the amounts of fines charged to those who withhold information.
“Some twenty days ago, I talked to Prime Minister Cvetkovic about the problems in implementation of the Law, particularly those for which the Government is responsible. One of important things we agreed was that the Government would without delay pass a special decree or a proposal for amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information to ensure better assumptions for enforcement of the Commissioner’s rulings and would take specific steps for enforcement of rulings which are still unexecuted. By proposing these amendments, the Government actually confirms it respects our agreement”, said Rodoljub Sabic, Commissioner for Information of Public Importance.
Although the Commissioner’s decisions are binding by the law, no mechanism for their enforcement was available to him. The law stipulated that “where necessary”, the 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”, Mr. Sabic explained and added: “In that context, cases that commanded the most publicity were those of “road mafia” in the public enterprise “Putevi Srbije” or procurement of “multi coloured” carriages by the Serbian Railways. But there are certainly many more cases which could be interesting in similar ways. I warned earlier, when the Petroleum Industry of Serbia was still a state-owned enterprise, that its rigidity in dealing with the public and failure to execute the Commissioner’s rulings could be indicative.”
“In brief, under the new arrangement, the Commissioner would be authorized to successively impose fines up to the total amount of RSD 200,000 on request from a person in whose favour he passed a ruling until the ruling is executed. If the ruling is not executed even after that, its execution would be ensured by the Government by enforcement action”, the Commissioner explained.