Access to public information in Serbia

Serbia is considered among the countries with the best regulatory framework regarding access to information of public relevance: the Global Right to Information Rating, compiled by NGOs AccessInfo and Centre for Law and Democracy, ranks the country in the second position in its global ranking assessing the quality of legislative frameworks regulating FOI across the world.

[5] The latest amendments to the Law, applying as of 17 February 2022, broadened the definition of public bodies bound by its provisions, strengthened the position of the Commissioner in terms of enforcement of his decisions, and enabled him to lodge misdemeanor complaints and issue misdemeanor orders.

The scope of the law is valued positively especially inasmuch as it extends the right to access to information to all natural person, notwithstanding their citizenship, temporary or permanent residence in the country.

If the requested information entails consequences for the protection of a person's life or freedom, public health and the environment, the time span at the disposal of authorities is reduced to 48 hours.

The position of the Commissioner for Information was held by Rodoljub Šabić, who was appointed for an initial 7-years term and then re-elected in 2011.

Aside from examining individual complaints related to violations of the right to free access to information, the Commissioner also addresses citizens’ requests asking how to exercise their right to information, provides to state authorities opinions about the implementation of the law, trainings for law implementation and takes part in activities related to the EU accession process.

It has been noted that a significant limitation of the right set forth in the Constitution is due to the restrictions applied to the admissibility of complaints against first instance decisions: a complaint is not admissible if “lodged against decisions of the National Assembly, the President of the Republic, the Government of the Republic of Serbia, the Supreme Court of Serbia, the Constitutional Court, the National Bank of Serbia, and the Republic Public Prosecutor” (Art.

In June 2013, the verdict of the ECtHR defined “unpersuasive” the argument used by the Agency according to which it did not hold the information requested and found that the restrictions imposed by the Serbian intelligence agency were not justified by domestic law and hence constituted a violation of article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.