The obligation of producing Information Booklet on Work under the Art. 39 of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance, laid down for the authorities under the Art. 3, section 1, subsection 1 of this Law.
The government bodies referred to under the Art. 3, section 1, subsection 1 of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance ("Official Gazette of the RS" No. 120/04), within the meaning of this Law, are the government authorities, local self-government bodies and organisations, empowered to execute public competences.
In our legal system, vesting of the public competences in our legal system is performed exclusively by the Law.
Under the Art. 2 of the Law on Public Utility Service ("Official Gazette of the RS" no. 16/97 and 42/98), municipality, city, i.e. the City of Belgrade regulate and provide conditions for carrying out of public utility service operations and their development.
According to the Law on Local Self-Governance ("Official Gazette of the RS", No. 9/02, 33/04 and 135/04), regulation and providing of carrying out public utility service and their development are operations which originally fall within the scope of activities of the municipality, and are not regarded as vested operations.
On the basis of the mentioned afore derives, that Public Utility Enterprise is not a government body within the meaning of the Art. 3, section 1, subsection 1 of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance, and that it does not have a statutory obligation to publish Information Booklet on Work under the Art. 39 of that Law.
Certainly, it does not imply that the said enterprise, as public authority body within the meaning of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance, should not, for the purpose of providing information to the public, i.e. customers of its services, release as much information as possible on its work, especially on the procedures for deciding rights and obligations of citizens and legal entities, as customers of the utility services, and all other information the public has got importance to know.
(The answer is contained in the letter sent to a government body, no. 011-00-21/2005-03 of 19.12.2005.)
