Source: "Blic"
A couple of days ago, the Minister of Internal Affairs, has by adopting a suggestion of the Commissioner for Information, passed a decision that the Ministry of Internal Affairs should stop implementation of the „Rule Book on Official and State Secret and About the Method of Issuing and Relieving from Keeping Official and State Secret” and to replace this enactment with a new one without delay. Although this is about individual Rule Book which is in application only in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, this thing has also broader and more general importance.
As first, because the Ministry of Internal Affairs is a huge system which has extremely large number of information of interest for the public. It is quite important to execute possible limitation of the right of the public to access that information in such a big system in accordance with modern democratic principles. And as second, because that move of the Ministry of Internal Affairs should set a good example for many others. Relatively recently, less than a year ago, we have adopted the Law on Data Secrecy. Although it has flaws, it has at least offered a basis for establishing normative system resembling those in the modern world, instead of the „system” which is actually inconsistent „impassable forest” of regulations, inherited from Milosevic and Tito’s times.
But even much better law would be just a dead letter on the paper if its value is not confirmed in practice. And the Law on Data Secrecy has envisaged two years’ term during which the authorities are obliged to check all different „secrets” which have been established using criteria from past times. But, it hasn’t envisaged that if it fails to do so, „the secrecy” shall cease to exist, nor did it provide fines if nothing is done in the envisaged deadline. And then, it is not by coincidence that half of the term is already lapsing, and objectively there are no desired results. Therefore it would be really good that the decision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs should remind many others that the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Rule Book is not (wasn’t) the only anachronous one, completely outdated, even contrary to the Constitution, and that we still have to seriously face the question - how many are there similar, and how many individual „secrets” are determined on their basis? And of course, to eliminate that unnecessary, often harmful and ugly ballast that we have inherited from the past.
