Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006

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Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006of secrecy of letters and other forms of communication. In that sense,decisions on such actions are classified as secret in the Law on SecurityIntelligence Agency and sub-legal acts of the Agency” 790 . It is true that theConstitution of the Republic of Serbia considers this as legal in certainsituations, but it is questionable to what degree BIA does it, as violation ofthe rights and freedoms of Serbian citizens is allowed only to a certain limitand does not depend on the discretion evaluation of BIA’s managers.The Serbian Supreme Court in a closed session held on April 19, 2006passed a decision that BIA rejected 791 . Members of the council were judgesJadranka Injac, Borivoje Bunjevacki, Zoja Popovic and court counselorVera Marinkovic 792 . Not going deeper into the merits, the Supreme Courtestablished that BIA cannot be the party in the procedure and thereforeit cannot be the prosecutor in administrative procedure either. BIAhad no active legitimacy in the dispute as execution of the right to freeaccess to information is an administrative affair that is solved through theimplementation of the Law on General Administrative Procedure 793 , whichstipulates that prosecutor in the administrative procedure can be a physicalperson, legal person or other party if it thinks that administrative act violatedsome right or legal interest 794 . The decision of the commissioner did notdecide on BIA’s right or legal interest, but the agency’s obligations to actas first-instance administration body following a request of the Initiative.Following this decision of the Serbian Supreme Court, the decision of thecommissioner became executive so BIA was obliged to submit the requiredinformation within seven days. BIA has not done so to date.After BIA’s rejection to submit the required data, apart from the decision ofthe commissioner and decision of the Serbian Supreme Court, the Initiativedecided to use the last mechanism to protect the right to free access toinformation that the law allows and to submit a request for execution of thecommissioner’s decision to the Serbian government 795 . Under the Law onFree Access to Information, the commissioner decisions are obligatory, and790 The charges that BIA raised to the Serbian Supreme Court are available in the Initiative’s documentation791 Decision of the Serbian Supreme Court no. U. 247/06 of May 23 rd , 2006, available in the Initiative’s documentation792 Ibid793 The Law on General Administrative Procedure (Official Gazette of the FRY Nos. 33/97 and 31/2001),adopted on July 19 th , 1997. Changes and amendments to this law were adopted on July 5 th , 2001794 See above under 791795 The Initiative submitted a request to the Serbian government on May, 29 th , 2006 and it available in theInitiative’s documentation146
Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006if necessary, their execution is secured by the Serbian government 796 . SinceBIA disrespected the law, the government, by using its authorizations, wasobliged to “make” it do so. Interestingly, the Law does not specify the wayin which the government is supposed to do it, or the deadline during whichit should happen. The Initiative regards this as a big omission. A potentialsolution to the problem is that the procedure in which the governmentsecures execution of the commissioner decision is based on regulationsof the administrative procedure, i.e., that pronouncement of money fineis repeated several times until the decision is executive. The mentionedrequest was submitted on May 29, 2006 and the government of Serbia hasnot responded to the Initiative to date nor has it undertaken anything tofulfill its legal obligations.The “BIA case” largely attracted attention of wider public in Serbia 797 ,which shows that there is interest of Serbian citizens in free access toinformation and methodology of BIA’s work. The discussion involved manylaw experts and government representatives, so various comments could beheard. Djordje Mamula, a Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) deputy, said:“The analysis of foreign services may lead to information required fromBIA by mixing that data with the number of Serbian citizens, number ofcitizens of legal age... I have not heard that Americans or Russians publishinformation that BIA is required to give... The action of the Youth Initiativemay look nice at the first place, but with all due respect, youth is not alwaysan argument sufficient enough” 798 .Serbian Minister of Justice Zoran Stojkovic saw the whole case like this: “Wewould have noting else but pure politicking from request to BIA to submitinformation on tapping...What commissioner for information RodoljubSabic is doing is only damaging the state” 799 . Director of the Center forAdvanced Legal Studies in Belgrade Vladimir Vodinelic, PhD, claims: “BIAis wrong in this case, as this is about statistical data, which nowhere in theworld can be secret” 800 . Professor Bogoljub Milosavljevic, author of bookson control of security services, said: “The decision of the commissioner796 Law on free access to information, Article 28, see above under 3797 According to the data of the Initiative’s media team, printed media published around 30 articles on this casein the period from May 24 th to May 31 st , 2006 while electronic media reported eight times on this case in thesame period798 Milan Galovic, BIA would not disclose wiretapping information, POLITIKA, June 22 nd , 2006799 BLIC, June 5, 2006800 Nebojsa Jankovic, Serbian BIA does not respect Law on Free Access to Information: Catch-28, NETNOVINAR, June6, 2006147
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Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006

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