Access to information of public importance is regulated by the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance, with the purpose of the fulfillment and protection of the public interest to know and attain a free democratic order and an open society.  Information of public importance, within the meaning of this Law, is information held by a public authority body, created during work or related to the work of the public authority body, contained in a document, and related to everything that the public has a justified interest to know. First law of this kind was adopted in 2004 and its purpose back then was democratization of the society and changing the relationship between government and the public. Normative rules for civil control of work of public authorities and institutions and mechanisms which contributes to preventing the abuse of authority and corruption were established. At first, due to lack of knowledge and experience, it was difficult for both – public and employees to implement this law. Now, it appears that those obstacles are overcame.  However, practice still shows deficiencies in implementation of this law, which contradicts to the Serbia’s path toward EU, democratic values and values of open society. Most often difficulties that occur are duration of the procedure, public authorities ignoring requests and referring to other institutions, and similar problems. This is supported by the fact that Parliament, few months after previous Commissioner’s Rodoljub Sabic mandate has expired, still haven’t initiated the process of selection of the new Commissioner  for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection. Also, new Draft Law on Amendments and Supplements of Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance was suggested by Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, and according to it, all public authorities would be able to initiate administrative dispute against the resolution of the Commissioner, which would additionally slow down already long process of accessing the information of public importance.

This Draft Law, also, enables some enterprises to be excluded from the obligation to provide the information of public importance, even when the state is shareholder of such an enterprise.   This practically means that the companies which in the ownership structure have taxpayers money will be exempted of obligation to make their business data available for public, such as Serbian Railways, Corridors (Koridori), Air Serbia, Telekom, etc.

In order to enable dialogue between subjects interested in this topic, Belgrade Open School have organized three-day training in Sabac. This training was held from 20-22th February 2019. Participants of the training were representatives of civil society organizations and media – partners on project ‘Civil Society for Advancement of Serbia’s EU Accession’.

Participants were reminded on the procedures within the process of Serbia’s accession to the European Union. During the training, participants had the opportunity to discuss with relevant experts about situations which they encounter with, in the process of accessing information of public importance.

We started the training optimistically, showing the progress that has been made when it comes to including organizations of civil society and public in process of public administration reforms that lead to open and participative work of state administration authorities. Conditions for the public participation in public administration reform have been increased in the last few years. Growth trend of cooperation between state authorities and organizations of civil society could be noticed in  preparation of two Action plans within Public Administration Reform Strategy. In the preparation of the first Action plan (2015- 2017), four representatives of organizations of civil society have been involved, while in the preparation of the second Action plan (2018- 2020) twelve representatives of the CSOs, selected through public call, were included. Also, it was emphasized that Serbia is member in Open Government Partnership - multilateral initiative that aims to improve integrity, transparency, efficiency and responsibility of public authorities through building a relationship of trust with public.

Some of the main topics we discussed were how the right for free access to information can be used, how that process looks like and what are the ways to improve the request for information, so the public authorities could not deny it. Legally, there is a possibility to limit the right for free access to information but also public authorities can deny or obstruct accession to information by staying silent, referring to other institutions or appealing to data confidentiality. Given the above, we discussed potential solutions to these problems. Some of the biggest public institutions and companies regularly refuse to provide information of public importance, such as Telekom Srbija, Serbian Railways, Doljevac Municipality and others. It shows that there are no effective legal sanctions, which could help citizens to have better access to information. Participants shared their positive and negative experience about this process. Some of the potential solutions were considered, such as:

-          Transparent election of the new Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection

-          Parliament should take into consideration conclusions and recommendations mentioned in the Commissioner’s  reports submitted since 2014 until today, as well as to establish responsibility of public authorities

-          Government should secure implementation of all Commissioner’s decisions

-          Strengthening the positions of independent state institutions

-          Introducing criminal offence for interfering with the Commissioner’s work and public’s right to know, etc.

Participant were introduced to the Institute of Complaint to the Commissioner, about the procedure and deadlines. It was discussed how the complaint should be formulated in order to facilitate procedure.

Also, participants had the opportunity to talk to the representatives of media, whose work is depends on the information. They presented the most common obstacles related to this topic that media faces on daily basis.

Participants and lecturers concluded the training together- there are a lot of steps that need to be in order to establish relationships between public and authorities. However, in this process of creation of open society, large and active role and responsibility lays on public, especially civil society organizations.