Commissioner for the information of public importance considers that frequent responses of media, journalistic and professional organizations, trade unions, and other entities of the civil society, with regard to certain events concerning freedom of expression, deserve the highest attention. According to Commissioner's opinion, these reactions, as well as some requests for protection addressed to Commissioner, indicate the need of critical reassessment of things done so far concerning incorporation of internationally recognized standards into our legislation, and in particular, the practice.
In this occasion, Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic has stated the following:
„Right to have free access to information, reception, transmission and distribution, freedom of thoughts, information and media, overall complex of rights which all together constitute the freedom of expression, is not functioning in accordance with effective standards in the democratic world, particularly in EU.
Regarding the free access to information, it is necessary to adopt, as soon as possible, many complementing regulations, especially in the field of personal information protection, protection of secrets and its classification and treatment of intelligence service archives/files.
In connection with transmission and distribution of information, particularly through media, our legislation, and predominantly practice, has to be harmonized with substantially different solutions. In the democratic world, right to publicly criticize authorities and officials means to reveal information and ideas that insult, shock and disturb, without risking criminal persecution. It is in our interest to bring in line our prevailing opinions regarding responsibilities of media concerning slander and insult, etc. with prevailing opinions existing in EU.
As regards protection of the freedom of expression, it is not only an issue of our regulations and jurisdiction of our bodies. It is necessary to face the fact in the responsible manner, bearing in mind that the competence of judicial and other institutions for protection of the human rights became reality for us. This means creation of special normative and actual presumptions. It would be grave to allow that our unreadiness is deemed as ignorance towards decisions of entities, the competence of which we embraced.“
