Avoiding of debate on „disputable“matters

 

Transparency Serbia considers Government's amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information extremely useful. However, such decision is not entirely for praise, since the draft of amendments to the same Law already exists in Parliamentary procedure. We remind that draft submitted to Assembly as initiative of more than 30.000 citizens in December 2007, from unexplainable reasons, is still not in the agenda, although by Rules of Procedure it should have been done on regular autumn sitting last year.

 

Government's preposition, with few changes, is actually based on the text of civil initiative, out of which „unacceptable“provisions are eliminated. What are the reasons for this kind of Government's proceeding, having in mind that Government could give its opinion on suggested amendments to the Law already in Parliament procedure instead of submitting of it's own? We presume that reasons could be the desire not to debate on certain matters.

 

We emphasize that there is no provision in Government's draft on establishing of protection of officers for access to information who report corruption. Although Government is obligated to protect whistleblowers by CoE Civil law Convention on Corruption ratified in 2007, Serbia doesn't do anything in that sense. Even more, eliminating of this amendment is directly opposite to obligation to comply with GRECO recommendations, on whose implementation Governement should submit report until the end of year.

 

Transparency – Serbia

 

Belgrade 11 May 2009.