In the current practice concerning implementation of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance, based on the Art. 27 of the Law providing for that administrative procedure may be instituted against Commissioner's Decision, 32 complaints were lodged. In 6 cases decided so far, the Court either rejected the appeals or dismissed them as illegitimate, i.e. groundless.
On that occasion, the Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic stated:
„Regardless of relative inaccuracy, the mentioned provision governing the right to institute administrative procedure guarantees the right solely to citizens, journalists, media, i.e. information seekers, i.e. persons whose right was subject to a decision. The entity deciding on the right, in accordance with the regulation that first instance court may not have administrative procedure against the second instance court, does not have the right to lodge a complaint. This has also been recognized in opinions expressed through the decisions of the Supreme Court on rejection of such appeals.
Attempts to conceal information from the public and disobeying the decision by the Information Commissioner by lodging, in other words, illegitimate appeal, may be underlined by unawareness, but often something much worse.
Because, apart from legitimacy of appeal, those who are employed by public authorities should, in general, be familiar with the fact that appeal in administrative procedure may not postpone execution of the final administrative act. That is why, in some of the mentioned cases, it is presumable that this is about conscious and decisive breach of the public right to know.
Conscious and decisive breach of any Law by authorities is something which surely may not be tolerated. That would, even in the state of political turmoil, have to involve certain forms of responsibility. Persons in charge of initiating the procedures for determining responsibility, since the Commissioner does not have any authorizations in that sense, would have to take care of that at the end. Otherwise, they risk the conclusion that they do not support such actions.“
