Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, Mr. Rodoljub Sabic, has spoken today in Belgrade with the Presidents, that is, representatives of National Councils of Hungarian, Rumanian, Slovakian and Bulgarian national minority groups.
Representatives of the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights of the State Union have participated in talks.
Out of the total number of claims for safeguard of rights, that is complaints, which media and NGOs addressed to the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, vast majority, more than 95% were submitted due to “silence of the administration”, that is, due to lack of any response.
The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance demanded once again that the Government passes a regulation which would prescribe a fee sheet, which government bodies would use to calculate expense fees for copies of documents, which are delivered to the citizens or media upon request.
It is, in fact, about making the provision of the Article 17 of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance operational. It stipulates, among other things, that “a copy of the document which comprises desired information is issued with the seeker's obligation to pay the necessary expenses fee”, and that the “Government of the Republic of Serbia prescribes a fee sheet” based on which all expenses are calculated.
The analsis of addressing citizens and media to Commissioner for the Information of Public Importance, among other things, presents the presence of certain number of demands for the protection of rights, that is, complaints which show justified public interest, Commission, due to legally established rights, cannot fulfil. Due to that Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic has made the following statement:
