Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, Rodoljub Šаbić has today, in the letters sent to Chairmen of the Association of Journalists of Serbia (Udruženje novinаrа Srbije - UNS), Independent Association of the Journalists of Serbia (Nezаvisno udruženje novinаrа Srbije - NUNS) and of Independent Association of the Journalists of Vojvodina (Nezаvisno društvo novinаrа Vojvodine - NDNV), congratulated to all journalists in Serbia the 3rd May, World Media Freedom Day. By sending to the journalists best wishes for success in their work, the Commissioner confirmed the readiness and obligation to help them implement their important social function. Stressing that the construction of democratic society inevitably means adequate position and the role of journalists and of media, the Commissioner evaluated that it is necessary for the state to do many things on that plan.
„The journalists and the media increasingly refer to the rights from the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance and put it in the function of informing the widest public. That is beyond doubt good, but it is not good that regardless of progress problems are still many. Therefore it is high time to seriously activate the responsibility mechanisms for law infringement.
The proclaimed principles of the publicity of wok of authorities and of e-government oblige the authorites to present to the public much more information in the most appropriate way, proactively, by public presentation of available databases and on Internet. We can not be satisfied with the existing level of e-communication of our authorities and the public, the things have to change there much more quickly.
Presence of different factual mechanisms of implicit censorship is also evident. They must be supressed, becuse one of the most important preconditions for successful democratic transition is that the space for acting of journalists and of media, legally and factually, shall be harmonized with the principles determined in Article 10 of the European Human Rights Charter.
The priority obligation of the state is to secure the journalists elementary personal safety, which also means the obligation to punish those endangering that safety. In relation to that, we must not forget the cases in which even several years after death of the journalist, the public, truth or justice haven't been satisfied. Both because of the past, and because of the future, it is extremely important that this should be finally resolved.“
