The Commissioner for the information of public importance assesses that certain reactions of some government bodies to the solutions of the Commissioner point at insufficient knowledge of the contents of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance, both in terms of the contents of the rights, and in terms of the procedure for their enforcing.   

In that regard, the Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic stated the following:

“There is insufficient knowledge on many things which are elementary, but this is most obvious in connection with four issues.

First, limitation or declining of the access to information by silence or by verbal or written notifications, respectively, is not only unfair and frequently rude, but also illegal and punishable by the Law. If a government body declines to provide a requested information, pursuant to article 16, para. 10 of the Law, it is under obligation to submit a justifiable decision on the declining and to advise the applicant, in this decision, on the legal means which are at his/her disposal.

Second, the calling by a government body upon the provisions of other laws which stipulate “justifiable” or similar interest as the reason for declining the access to information is contrary to the Law.  The Law on Free Access to Information contains in article 4 an expressed supposition of the existence of justifiable interest and the claimant of the information is not under any obligation to prove its existence.  The dilemma with regards to the “conflict of law” has been resolved a long time ago.  In the comparative and international practice, using the principle of lex specialis, when it comes to the issue of free access to information, advantage is given to the law which regulates the access to information. The same attitude is articulated in the relevant international documents, such as, e.g., in the Joint Declaration on Accessibility of Information of the UN, OSCE and the Organisation of the American States from December, 2004..

Third, the fact that a document bears a mark of secrecy is not by itself automatically sufficient to limit the access to the information it contains.  This is, pursuant to article 9, item 5) of the Law, possible and justified only if, due to the disclosure of the information, there could be difficult, legal or other consequences to the interests protected by the law, which prevail over the interest in the access to information.

This means that in each concrete case the obligation, firstly of the body from which the information has been requested and secondly of the Commissioner and eventually of the Supreme Court of Serbia, is to evaluate whether there are real and not only formal reasons for limiting free access to information, presumably a justifiable one.

Fourth, the decisions of the Commissioner for Information are, pursuant to article 28 of the Law, binding and in the case of need their execution is ensured by the Government of Serbia.  The Commissioner has no possibility to ensure the execution of his decisions himself.  The public itself may evaluate the relationship of the bodies to whom the orders are given or the Government versus the obligations which they have according to the Law.”