Press Release, 31.05.2010.
The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, Rodoljub Sabic says that it is good that, according to the Commissioner’s order, information about the refinery in Smederevo was made available to the public, but it’s not good that he had to interfere at all, especially the fact that exclusion of the public was contracted under the agreement between local authorities and foreign partner.
The Commissioner, bearing in mind that this is not an isolated case, warns that commercial agreements between the authorities and various local and foreign partners which exclude the right of the public, are contrary to the Constitution and the law and that are harmful from the aspect of anticorruption and for the reputation of the authorities.
In this regard, the Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic emphasized the following:
In connection with reactions from journalists, associations of journalists and other entities on the Recommendation on Reporting of the Media on Medicine presented by the Ministry of Health, Rodoljub Sabic, Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, said it was very important that public authorities and representatives of the Government refrain from actions which cause or may cause a sense of establishing of a censorship or auto-censorship mechanism.
The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, Rodoljub Sabic, has expressed his approval of the decision of the Public Prosecutor’s Office to drop criminal charges on the B92 reporter for alleged revelation of the secret in the ,,road mob’’ case, estimating that the decision represents a contribution to establishing the standards of the democratic world in laying down the law. The Commissioner has reminded that this case gives reason to remember that as a state we have not provided appropriate protection for the people who have risen to protect the public interest and confront abuses, corruption or criminal. Those people, the so called insiders, or as they are more and more often called in the world- whistleblowers- often suffer unpleasant and completely undeserved consequences of the clash with formal or informal rules on keeping secrets.