According to the provision of Article 2 of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance ("Official Gazette of RS", No. 120/04, 54/07, 104/09 and 36/10), information of public importance means any information which may be available to anyone and not just to the requester.

According to Article 14 of the Law, protection of privacy is one of possible limitations of the right of free access to information of public importance, but the Law in the same Article also provides for certain exemptions in favour of the right to know (Article 14, items 1-3). These exemptions include the situation where the data subject gave his/her consent to make information available, the situation where such information relates to a person, event or occurrence of public interest, especially in cases of holders of public office or political figures, insofar as the information bears relevance on the duties performed by that person and finally the situation where a person's behaviour, in particular concerning his/her private life, has provided sufficient justification for a request for such information.

A decision whether an official's home address should be made available to the public pursuant to a request filed by a requester thus depends on whether the requirements for application of exemptions from the right to privacy provided for in Article 14, items 1-3 of the Law are met for disclosing of such information.

In view of the foregoing, when an official whose information is to be published has not given his/her consent, whether such information can be made available or not will depend on whether the details of such official's private address are relevant taking into account the tasks he/she performs and whether his/her behaviour provides sufficient justification for a request for such information. This should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis whenever a request of this kind is filed.

The fact that a requester needs such information for litigation-related purposes before a court, more specifically for the purposes of filing a submission, is not in and of itself sufficient reason to make an official's private address generally available as information of public importance. However, a question remains as to the justifiability of applicable legislative provisions and jurisprudence of certain courts or other authorities which demand private addresses of officials rather than their official ones where a lawsuit concerns their conduct of office, or which require a party in the proceedings to provide such information, rather than mandating the court to obtain it ex officio.

Rejection of a request to make an official's address available to the public must not prejudice a requester's right to access information on a person's home address kept in the records of the competent authority on another basis in order to exercise a legitimate interest, provided that such information is not disclosed as information of public importance, i.e. generally available information. In this context, you should bear in mind the provisions of the Law on Permanent and Temporary Place of Residence of Citizens (Article 20) which stipulate that information on citizens' permanent and temporary place of residence is recorded in the records of personal identity documents issued, as well as the provisions of the Law on Personal Identity Document (Article 28) which specify the requirements for provision of information contained in the personal identity card records, which procedure is conducted according to the rules set out in the Law on General Administrative Procedure (Article 161).

No.07-02649/2013-02 15 August 2013