Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006

Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006• The budget disposed of by the Coordination Center in the purposeof financing collective centers on the territory of the Republic ofSerbia;• How this budget was assigned to individual collective centers;• The parameters on which the assigning of funds to the collectivecenters is based on 281 .An answer to the submitted requests was not delivered in the periodpredicted by the law. The Coordination Center did not in any of the casesproduce a decision on denying the request with a written explanation anda note on the legal cure 282 . After an appeal submitted by the Initiative tothe Commissioner, the Coordination Center replied that they do not havejurisdiction over the collective centers, and therefore neither the data on thenumber of the collective centers, the budget, refugees and displaced personsand the means which are intended for financing the collective centers 283 .The Oil Industry of Serbia and Telecom Serbia consider that theinformation on the paychecks of the managers and the members of theAdministrative board represent a business secret and as such cannot beavailable to the public. It is predicted by the law that the submitter will bedenied access to information if it is predicted by a regulation or an officialact that such information is kept as a state, official, business or anothertype of secret and if severe legal or other consequences for the interestsprotected by the law which overweigh the interest of access to informationcould arise 284 . The Initiative does not consider the information on thepaychecks of the highest functioneers of public firms to be informationwhose revealing is not allowed by the law. The requests sent to powerutility “Elektrodistribucija Srbije”, JAT Airways and the Railway TransportFirm were met with „silence of the management” 285 . Only the City TrafficCompany acted according to the law and made transparent the paychecksof the managers and members of the Administrative board. This poses thequestion of whether the Law on free access to information applies equallyto all the organs of public authorities, in this case the public firms. TheCity Traffic Company in Belgrade is completely transparent concerning281 Request to the Coordination Center was sent on February 17 th , 2006 and is in the documentation of theInitiative282 Law on free access to information, Article 16, Paragraph 10, see above under 3283 The reply of the Coordination Center arrived to the Initiative on April 20 th , 2006, signed by Zlatan Ribac,and is in the documentation of the Initiative284 Law on free access to information, Article 9, Paragraph 1, Item 5, see above under 3285 See above under 26269