Press Releases - Archive

In the letter addressed to the Anti-Corruption Agency, the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection has estimated ''special conditions'' for access to documents imposed on the Commissioner by the Agency, as an unacceptable and legally unsustainable act which is the expression of ignorance or disregard of a number of relevant legal facts or something even worse.

The Commissioner has thus reacted to the Agency's document via which it informs him, regarding his request for production of documents so that he could examine them, that: "it can be concluded that certain data from the documents from the case relating to the control of assets and income of the Mayor Sinisa Mali constitute ''SECRET DATA'' in terms of Article 38 of the Law on Data Secrecy, whose protection requires the Commissioner to access them personally and on the Agency's premises, with prior notice."

The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection received the Ambassador Alexander Keltcevski, Head of OSCE/ ODIHR (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) Mission, which had been established on occasion of presidential elections in the Republic of Serbia. In addition to Ambassador Keltcevski, the meeting was attended by associates of the Mission, election analysts.

The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection has submitted the Report on Implementation of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance and the Law on Personal Data Protection in 2016 to the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia. The Report was submitted to the President of the Republic, the Protector of Citizens and the Government of the Republic of Serbia and posted on the Commissioner's website.

In the Report, the Commissioner assessed the situation in both areas as unsatisfactory and worrying, and recalled that in last year's report he expressed the concern that ignoring the problems that he had pointed out could jeopardize his assessment, repeated several times in previous reports, that in the field of freedom of information, regardless of numerous problems, there is an irreversible, continuous positive process, and noted with regret that this is exactly what happened.

The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection has sent a request to the Government of the Republic of Serbia that the Government should, as required by Article 28, paragraph 4 of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance ensure the direct enforcement of three Commissioner's decisions under which the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade is ordered to make available to the public certain documents or information about the case "Savamala".