The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection received today a 15-member delegation from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) who represent an initiative prompting adoption of a Law on the Whistleblowers.  The delegation included representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, representatives of of the parliaments of the entities of the Republic of Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as of the BiH Agency for the Fight against Corruption and representatives of the non-governmental organsations.
The Commissioner has promised assistance to his guests from Bosnia and Herzegovina in developing activities related to the preparation of legal mechanisms for protection of whistleblowers. Since they were particularly interested in the progress of the project for the creation of a model law on protection of whistleblowers in Serbia which is being coordinated by the Commissioner, with a support by the British Embassy and the Embassy of Netherlands, the Commissioner has promised that all the results of the project will be available, both those that have already been reached and those that will be achieved only in future.

In this context, the Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic, declared the following:

"Our country has a formal and substantial duty to provide adequate protection to people who pointed out to corruption, crime, and other anomalies in their communities and who, as a rule, suffer numerous unpleasant consequences because of that. As far as in 2006, a group of states fighting against corruption - GRECO, had addressed to us a binding recommendation in this connection with a deadline at the end of 2007, but this has obviously remained without an effect.

But even more important than formal commitments is an essential requirement that every possible contribution to the fight against corruption should be given. Needless to point out that for several years in succession the Global Corruption Perceptions Index has been showing that we are not progressing but stagnating in the company of countries which are considered as countries affected by an uncontrolled, systemic corruption. Providing adequate protection of whistleblowers would certainly represent a useful contribution.
Research conducted under the Project shows that a very high percentage of people (75%) believe that the state owes adequate protection to whistleblowers, while a much smaller percentage of them (14%) thinks that the state organs are now able to protect them and really make them safe.
The project that I am coordinating has as its final goal a model law that is to be developed based on the comparative analysis of solutions from a number of national laws implying, of course, a complex approach since the issue of insiders' protection enters into several legal domains (labor, administrative, misdemeanor, criminal, economic etc.). I believe that the model will be of high quality, and if this is accepted by the government and the National Assembly, I hope that we will finally get the Law on protection of whistleblowers.
If this result is useful and usable for Bosnia and Herzegovina as well (bearing in mind the specific nature of its constitutional arrangements) that, of course, will be very good. "