The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection Mr. Rodoljub Sabic met today with Ms. Kristina Kotnik-Sumah, Ms. Rosana Lemut-Strle and Mr. Andrej Tomsic, the deputies of the Information Commissioner of the Republic of Slovenia. The guests from Slovenia will spend several days in Belgrade, as part of the UNDP-supported project related to the cooperation on the improvement in personal data protection and the free access to information. As a part of the project, the deputies of the Slovenian Commissioner will, besides a series of presentations and consultative and educational conversations with the associates of the Commissioner for Information of the Republic of Serbia, visit the Ministry of the Interior and the Republic Health Insurance Institute. On Wednesday, Ms. Natasa Pirc-Musar, the Information Commissioner of the Republic of Slovenia, will arrive in Belgrade, where she will take part in the «The Administrative Transparency in Europe» Conference, hosted by the Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic and organized in cooperation with SIGMA (a joint initiative of OSCE and the European ) and UNDP.
In this regard, the Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic stated the following:
«The visit by our Slovenian colleagues is just one step in the successful cooperation we have had for a long time. From the very beginning, taken into consideration that the Slovenian transition and EU integration process was evaluated as very successful, we have tried to develop good relations with the institution of the Information Commissioner of the Republic of Slovenia, a state authority, which, within the Slovenian governance system, has very similar jurisdictions as the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection in the Republic of Serbia.
The experiences of our Slovenian colleagues were very useful in the process of affirmation of the right to the free access to information and for the establishment of practices for the protection of that aforementioned right by the Commissioner that are harmonized with the existing standards in the EU.
Now, we will try to make use of our excellent professional relations, frequent contacts and the possibility of cooperation, cooperation where content is more important than the form, in order to try and improve personal data protection in Serbia. This is of immense importance, taking into consideration the fact that we cannot be satisfied with the current state of affairs in the previously mentioned area. In order to harmonize with the European standards, we will have to do a lot more as a state, both when it comes to legislation and when it comes to practice. It is necessary to start changing things for the better, a task my associates and I will work very hard on. But, it is a task that requires the participation of a large number of stakeholders. The attitude of the responsible institutions for certain tasks that they were entrusted with is not up to par. This attitude, especially the attitude of the state authorities, mainly the Government of the Republic of Serbia, has to start changing, without further ado.»
