In a letter sent to the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection demanded of that Ministry, as the authority in charge of enforcing the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance and the Law on Local Self-Government, to conduct inspections of 11 local self-governments and to undertake other actions required under the law, including the initiation of relevant procedures to determine liability for violations of the law.

The letter was motivated by the fact that the Commissioner received as many as 11 complaints by the Anti-Corruption Council of the Government of the Republic of Serbia this month due to denial of access to information which it had requested from local self-government units.

Specifically, the following towns/cities and municipalities were involved: Nis, Novi Sad, Cacak, Kragujevac, Sremska Mitrovica, Zrenjanin, Pancevo, Cuprija, Zajecar, Bujanovac and Tutin.

The information requested by the Council is clearly and undeniably an absolutely legitimate subject of public interest, namely information on the number of employees, information on registered properties, information on granted subsidies, information on other budget allocations etc.

The Commissioner is of the opinion that such information should be available to every citizen, the general public, even without a specific request, on a proactive basis, on the websites of local self-governments. For this reason, any denial of access to such information to anyone is unacceptable, while in the case of the Anti-Corruption Council – a working body of the Serbian Government – such denial seems almost grotesque.

This behaviour is the polar opposite of the anticipated and assumed relations between local self-governments and national authorities in accordance with the Law on Local Self-Government and is a punishable infringement under the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance. The Commissioner therefore believes it warrants an appropriate response from the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government.