Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006

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