Press Release, 04. 03. 2009.
The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection appealed to the Government of the Republic of Serbia to start fulfilling its obligations set forth in Article 28, paragraph 3 of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance- where necessary, the Government shall ensure that the Commissioner's rulings are enforced. The Commissioner estimated that the Government's failure to meet its obligations is an incentive for noncompliance with the law and the cause of justified discontent of citizens and all others who are unable to exercise their right set under the law and confirmed by the decision of the relevant authority.
Estimated as especially unacceptable and worrying by the Commissioner is the fact that the Government is failing to ensure enforcement of the Commissioners rulings, and also that structures and individuals subordinated directly to the Government even support non enforcement of legally binding Commissioner's rulings. Regardless whether evil intentions or ignorance and incompetence stand behind these acts, they are not to be tolerated and should bear all legal consequences.
Regarding therewith the Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic stated the following:
The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection sent a letter to the Minister of Education of the Republic of Serbia in connection with the activities aimed at establishing a single record of primary and secondary school pupils within the single information system of the Ministry of Education. In his letter, the Commissioner pointed to a number of outstanding issues in connection with the protection of pupils' privacy and personal data.
The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection said today that the submission of several dozens of personal document sheets of judges and trainee judges of the Commercial Court of Belgrade by an anonymous sender to a large number of media was an action which unreasonably compromised the judges' privacy and constituted a gross violation of the Personal Data Protection Law. The Commissioner called on the media to refrain from publishing the information they received.