The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection has passed a Decision in which he ordered the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs to give Citizens' Association "Civic Initiatives" of Belgrade access to information on earmarked transfers allocated for development and establishment of social security services, i.e. to provide them with copies of the documents which contain information that reveals which local self-governments had signed agreements on these transfers with the Ministry, what amounts were allocated for each local self-government unit which had signed such agreements on earmarked transfers, which types of services were funded from those amounts and how many beneficiaries received those services.

"Civic Initiatives" had sent a freedom of information request to the Ministry, but the Ministry failed to act in any way pursuant to that request within the statutory period; the association therefore filed a complaint with the Commissioner to protect its rights. As the Ministry had not provided any justified reasons for not acting pursuant to the request, the Commissioner passed the said decision.

The Ministry has a duty to comply with the Decision without delay and in any case not later than five days of its receipt and must notify the Commissioner of the actions it has taken to comply with it.

Just like in all other similar situations, the Commissioner has taken a principled stand that handling of public money and resources is a legitimate subject of public interest in all circumstances, especially where the amounts involved are significant, as is undeniably the case in this specific situation (to the tune of 400 million dinars).

For this reason, without limitation to this specific case, the Commissioner reiterates that all public authorities that handle public money have a duty to reply to all requests from the public in full compliance with the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance.

Indeed, it would be good and conductive to establishing trust in public authorities if they made such information available to the public even without specific requests by publishing it on a proactive basis.