Today Commissioner for Information of Public Importance has asked the Government of Serbia to introduce the act according to Article 17 of Law on Free Access to the Information of Public Importance.

According to the abovementioned act, the Government of Serbia prescribes the fees sheet, which is used by authorities as the base for calculation of the costs of making and delivering documents' copies.

The Commission's initiative directed to the Government points out the need to define the amount of fees for making different documents' copies (photocopies, electronic records - floppies, CD and DVD, audio and audio-visual records etc.), as well as to resolve other issues regarding the amount and payment of the fees.

Due to the initiative Commission Rodoljub `abi has made the following  statement:

"There are at least two reasons for introducing this act. Firstly, it is a formal Government's obligation which has not been fulfilled yet and which should certainly be fulfilled. Secondly, but not of less importance, is the fact that, by introducing a new regulation, the possibility of authorities avoiding obligations defined by the law, will be eliminated. There have been cases where providing information is denied because of alleged lack of instructions, so it is likely to expect refusal to issue copies since the amount of fees for that is not defined.

It is highly essential that the Government's regulation functions in the way to enable the rights of free access to information and not to be an obstacle to fulfill.  It means that payment of fees should be applied only when it is necessary and even then only at the level of fundamental costs.

I hope the Government will introduce the regulation, whose introduction I have initiated, within a short period of time. It would be very useful under the circumstances of obvious delay in creating assumptions for the application of the Law on free access to information".