The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection submitted to the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia the Special Extraordinary Report on implementation of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance in public enterprises.

In that regard, Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic said the following:

"Article 36 of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance envisages that the Commissioner must submit the Annual Report to the National Assembly every year. Paragraph 2 of this Article sets out that, in addition to the Annual Report, the Commissioner may also submit to the National Assembly any other reports which he considers necessary.

This report is the result of the conclusion that it is necessary to draw attention of the National Assembly to a worryingly poor attitude of a significant part of public enterprises towards their duties under the Law.

The Commissioner has received the total of 650 complaints against public enterprises. Of these complaints, 541 have been resolved. In 39 cases complaints have been rejected or denied, while in 502 cases complaints have been justified. In 205 of these cases the Commissioner did not have to pass formal rulings ordering provision of information, since enterprises provided to requesters information they previously denied after the first Commissioner's intervention, i.e. after the requests for explanation. In 297 cases the Commissioner had to pass rulings ordering provision of information. Although those rulings are final, binding and enforceable, enterprises did not comply with them in 113 cases. Also, the legal mechanisms which should, according to the law, enforce the rulings are not functioning.

Although the number of rulings that are not complied with compared with the total number of cases handled by the Commissioner (21,600) or the total number of complaints (15,300) does not seem large in relative or absolute terms, its specific weight should not be underestimated.

Adverse consequences of such attitude on human rights and also on the authority of the law, the National Assembly which enacted it and ultimately the state itself should also not be underestimated. In addition, such attitude of public enterprises is also very indicative from the aspect of anti-corruption requirements. Although it may not be so in each specific case, the previous practice with complaints lodged with the Commissioner in general, and particularly with complaints lodged by the Anti-Corruption Council of the Serbian Government, has showed that in a large number of cases underlying the issues of transparency are the issues of wastefulness and illegality of operations and corruption.

In view of the foregoing, in the belief that it is necessary for all competent authorities, particularly the Serbian Government and the National Assembly, to take all relevant measures in order to ensure more consistent implementation of the law and responsibility for its violation, I submitted this report."