Source: "Danas"
Rodoljub Sabic, Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection speaks for “Danas” (Today)
INTERVIEW
Belgrade – In the last seven months 1,686 files have been registered based on complaints on the lack of respect for right to freely access information of public importance, while in the last year 1,865 of them have been registered. A year ago it was 1,517. That means that until the end of the year the number of files might be double the size from the previous year - points out for “Danas” Rodoljub Sabic, Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection.
- It is good that citizens insist in this way on exercising their right and confirm the trust in Commissioner for Information. On the other hand, constantly high and growing number of complaints speaks that there are still many problems in exercising the right to freely access information. Of course, one should have in mind that the total number of requests for accessing information of authorities is constantly growing, and that besides the growing number of complaints also grows the number of cases in which this right is exercised without problems - explains Sabic.
- What state authority is the least updated regarding free access to information?
- If I should sort out someone, that is the Ministry of Finance, both regarding the significant number of complaints, and due to some unimplemented orders of the Commissioner, but also due to lack of fulfilling some of the legally determined obligations towards the public. For instance, according to the Law on Determining the Maximum Number of Employees in Republic Administration, that Ministry is obliged to keep and publicize Register with data on number of employees and of engaged persons, as well as about numbers on amount paid for salaries, allowances and compensations in all authorities, but it doesn’t do so. Due to that, the public reaches these information just after Commissioner’s intervention.
- What state authority receives the biggest number of requests?
- Probably the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Finance and Privatization Agency. Independently of that to which authority they turn the most, the subject of interest is information on budgetary expenditures, public procurements, privatizations and the like. It is obvious that more than the potential of the Law on Free Access to Information best recognized is the anti-corruption one.
- 140 requests have been submitted for initiating infringement procedures against state authorities, which is much less in relation to the total number of transgressions. How do you comment that and how many transgressions are there otherwise?
- Those 140 requests have been submitted by the Ministry for State Administration in this year, since this is in its competence. In the previous five years, earlier in charge Ministry of Culture has submitted approximately as much. Those couple of hundreds of infringement procedures are small number in relation to the number of several thousand transgressions. With such „penal policy“ it is really unbelievable that we have achieved even so much.
- How many of such cases have been processed so far?
- Around 300 files have been processed, and only couple of tens of them have been finalized in fines or warnings. Some of them are still pending, and some are, like the thousands of those that weren’t started, outdated. That practice has to change.
Boxed bold text : Judiciary spoils average mark
- Did You receive all reports on work of state bodies for 2009? How many of them still haven’t sent those reports and can you quote some of the authorities that didn’t do that?
- For 2009, 737 reports arrived, which is over one hundred more than for the previous year, and two and a half times more than for instance in 2005. That is still not the reason for satisfaction. A big number of public authorities is still not executing this legal obligation. „Mitigating“ fact is that the most important, the highest, that is, practically all state authorities have fulfilled this obligation, as well as the predominant majority of local self-governments. The average has been spoilt by judiciary authorities, which can be explained to a certain measure, by organizational changes and relocations related to judiciary reform.