The President of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, Predrag Markovic, and the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance Rodoljub Sabic discussed today the problem of realizing and protecting free access to information of public Importance. In this occasion, the Commissioner, Rodoljub Sabic said:    

„I felt that it was my duty to especially emphasize during this discussion the need that the Assembly must, during its legislative activities, respect the unity and consistency of the legal system. Respecting this requirement, as well as the experiences and standards of democratic countries, it is essential to treat the Law on Access to Information of Public Importance as a fundamental law pertaining to issues of enabling access to documents held by the authorities. It shows a lack of principles to have on one hand a very liberal Law on Access to Information, and at the same time on the other hand to have certain other laws in certain fields that threaten, reduce, or even completely annul the achieved level of access to information. Regretfully, there were such instances, with the current Draft Law on Foreign Investment as a drastic example.

Due to the announced finalization of activities on harmonization of the Draft of the new Constitution, an important motive for discussion with the President of the Assembly, who is also the President of the Constitutional Committee, was the need to guarantee the right of access to information as a constitutional right. It is very important for Serbia to guarantee by its Constitution the right of access to information. His should be done clearly and unambiguously, which was not the case with some previously offered formulations, such as „right to be informed“, as a consequence of which the Commissioner for Information has submitted a written communication to the members of the Constitutional Committee at the beginning of June.

Only the guarantee of access to information, which implies the access of the public to documents held by the authorities, not informing the public via derived and processed information, statements, etc., can enable access to information to be an important mechanism of democratic control of authority and a strong means of fighting corruption.

The President of the Assembly has reassured me that during future activities he shall devote maximum attention to issues that were the subject of our discussion.“