The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection Mr. Rodoljub Sabic welcomed the adoption of the Decision of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, which states that all state administration bodies have to provide the data to the National Information Technology and Internet Agency as to where, meaning on which website, their Information Booklet has been uploaded, while the Agency is obliged to create a separate web page with the aforementioned website URLs on the E-Governance portal within 15 days from the day of the Decision.

Besides stating that this Decision of the Government, bearing in mind that the Government needs to ensure its full implementation, could be a considerable contribution to the fulfillment of the right of the public to information, the Commissioner Mr. Rodoljub Sabic also said the following:

“At the general level, this Decision is obviously in sync with the proclaimed principles of transparency of the work of the state authorities and E-Governance. In practice, this Decision, at the time being, would allow us to, within 15 days, have a clearer picture of which state bodies, despite their legal obligations, still do not have Information Booklets, or have them on a pro forma basis, with information lacking or not adequately maintained. We will get a chance to face the real state of affairs, which is not going to be a pleasant thing, but it is a precondition necessary for changing the existing state and for posing the question of responsibility for failures to fulfill this obligation.

The obligation of proactive publishing of as many relevant information on the work and in relation to the tasks of the state bodies as possible stems from the Law on the Free Access to Information of Public Importance, and is further defined by the Guidelines for the Publishing of the Information Booklet on the Work of a State Body, which I, as the Commissioner, passed three months ago. In the same period, my associates organized and conducted various educational trainings on Information Booklets for the responsible personnel at state institutions, which included participants from 120 state bodies at the national and the provincial level. On the website of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance www.poverenik.rs we have published, for the purposes of fulfilling our legal obligations and as an example, the Information Booklet on the work of this institution. The Information Booklet includes 200 pages of text, meaning 2.97 MB in size, and makes the work of the Commissioner fully transparent.

It is understood that, besides the educational measures, the fulfillment of legal obligations also entails responsibility and accountability. That is why I will demand that the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government whose jurisdiction the entire process is in, at the beginning of the coming year, initiates minor offence proceedings against those institutions that fail to fulfill their obligations; however, we need to take a top-down approach to this, and start with the most responsible individuals and the most responsible state authorities.”