Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006

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Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006• How many requests for wiretapping was submitted to BIA during2005;• How many persons were tapped during 2005 out of the wholenumber o filed requests. 776Information of public importance is any information created during workor 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 777 .The Law on Free Access to Information stipulates a legal deadline of 15days during which the public authority is to inform the applicant whether itholds the requested information 778 . More precisely, the public authority bodyis obliged to submit the required information in the said period or to issuea decision on the rejection of the request and give a written explanation ofsuch a decision and the legal remedy 779 .On November 4 th , 2005 BIA submitted a document to the Initiative thatcannot be called a decision as it is not in the required form nor does itcontain legal remedy 780 . With this document BIA rejected Initiative’s requestwith an explanation that “it is in direct collision with Article 9, Item 5 of theLaw on Free Access to Information” 781 .The mentioned article stipulates that a public authority will not allow theapplicant to exercise the right to access to information of public importanceif the required information on the basis of legal act or official act representsa state, official or business secret as a result of which harmful legal or otherconsequences might occur for interests protected by the law and outweighthe access to information interest 782 .The Initiative was not satisfied with such explanation so on November 17,2005 it submitted a complaint to the commissioner 783 . It was agreed that thenumber of people that BIA tapped during 2005 is not the information thatcan result in harmful legal or other consequences to interests protected by776 The Initiative submitted a request for free access to information BIA on October 31 st , 2005 and available inthe Initiative’s documentation archives777 Law on free access to information, Article 2, see above under 3778 Ibid, Article 16, item 1779 Ibid, Article 16. item 10780 The document that BIA submitted to the Initiative available in the Initiative’s documentation archives781 Ibid782 Law on free access to information, Article 9, Paragraph 1, item 5, see above under 3783 The Initiative submitted the complaint on November 17 th , 2005 and available in the Initiative’s documentationarchives144
Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006law and that BIA in this way deprived the Initiative of its constitutionallyand legally guaranteed right to free access to information. Had the Initiativerequested the names of persons who were tapped, BIA’s argument may havebeen accepted, but since this was only about the number of tapped persons,the argumentation is legally ungrounded. It is necessary to stress thatpublic authority body is obliged to follow the criteria applied by democraticsocieties when evaluating whether access to information in the specific casecould substantially imperil any of the interests set out in the Law 784 . Also,the public authority body that denies requested access must prove that, inthe particular case, the applicant did not have justified interest to know 785 .The argumentation used by the Initiative in the complaint ends with a legalsolution under which no provision of the Law must be interpreted in theway that would result in ban of some of the rights regulated by this Law orits limitation to a greater degree from the one that has been regulated 786 .The commissioner first submitted a complaint to BIA for opinionleaving them a three-day deadline and did not receive a response 787 . Whenconsidering the complaint submitted by the Initiative, the commissionerestablished that its arguments were justified and that BIA’s argument “couldnot have been accepted because the required information is not such thatwould result in no or limited freedom of access on the basis of provisionsspecified in Article 9, item 5 of the Law... The authority did not statethose more prevalent interests, nor did it announce anything following thesubmitted compliant, and the commissioner does not see that such interest,in this particular case, exists” 788 . On November 22 nd , 2005 passed a decisionordering BIA to submit the required information to the Initiative.54 days after the commissioner passed his decision 789 , BIA pressed chargesto the Serbian Supreme Court requesting annulations of the commissioner’sdecision, namely saying: “Bearing in mind that the subject of the requiredinformation that refers to one of the methods of Agency’s work is directlythreatening freedoms and rights of man and citizen guaranteed by theConstitution of the Republic of Serbia, the law regulates under whichconditions the authority may miss to obey the principle of inviolability784 A Guidebook to the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance, page 35785 Law on free access to information, Article 4, see above under 3786 Ibid, Article 8787 Decision of the commissioner no. 07-00-00297/2005-03, available in the Initiative’s documentation788 Ibid789 Decision of the commissioner was passed on November 22, 2005, and BIA raised charges to the SerbianSupreme Court on January 18 th , 2005145
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Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006

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