The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection has submitted to the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia the Report on the Implementation of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance and of the Law on Personal Data Protection for 2011.

The regular report, which is annually submitted by the Commissioner within three months of the end of the previous year, has also been placed on the Commissioner’s web site http://www.poverenik.org.rs/index.php/sr/doc/izvestaji.html. the same report has been, pursuant to the Law, forwarded to the President of the Republic, the Ombudsman and the Government of the Republic of Serbia.

Emphasizing the continued trend of more intensive citizen’s complaints to the Commissioner for the purpose of protection of their rights and that in 2011 more new cases have been processed, and only in the field of access to information, which is % more than in the previous year, i.e. times more than in 2005, the Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic has emphasized:

‘’The Republic of Serbia is one of the rare countries in which practically almost until the end of 2008 there was no law that systematically governed the protection of personal data.

This delay has had a direct influence on significantly different evaluations and statuses of the two fields falling within the competences of the Commissioner. On one hand, despite the numerous problems indicated in the report, the field of free access to information has seen a continuous progressive process for several years. Taking into account all relevant circumstances, the positive process is in all probability irreversible, and it is only necessary to promote it and maintain its continuity.

In this context, it is especially important to invest efforts in the affirmation of modern understanding of the essence of the right to free access to information. That right, from the standpoint of public authorities, in addition to the passive, must have an active component, as well. The authorities’ equitable treatment of requests for free access to information is not enough, it is necessary for the authorities to publish as much as possible information on their work proactively, without individual requests. Modern technical devices and electronic communication methods significantly facilitate the realization of the idea. It is good that there have been certain results, in conjunction with many problems, on that front, as well.

On the other hand, we are almost at the very beginning in the field of personal data protection. The negative effects of the said delay were exacerbated by the fact that the Commissioner, who had already been operating with a very small, completely inadequate number of staff, due to the incomprehensible omission of the Ministry of Finance, was deprived of the possibility to engage new staff on jobs in the field of personal data protection in the course of the first two years of the implementation of the Law. At the same time the Government and other state authorities were not performing the tasks delegated to them under the Law on Personal Data Protection.

The attitude of the society and the state towards privacy, especially towards the protection of personal data must change radically. It is therefore important that, regardless of the above, there were first more significant results in this field in 2011.“