Meeting with the Commissioner for Information

22. 5. 2025.

At the premises of the Commissioner for Access to Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, Mihajlo Čolak, representing the Judicial Base South and the Committee for Human Rights Niš, met with Slavoljupka Pavlović, Acting Assistant to the Secretary General – Department for Appeals and Enforcement in the Field of Access to Information.

The discussion focused on the phenomenon of abuse of the right to access information. In recent years, the issue of such abuse has become increasingly relevant, leading the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government to initiate legislative changes in 2024 aimed at preventing misuse.

This initiative has raised concerns among a significant part of civil society, which fears that efforts to prevent abuse could themselves be misused — allowing information holders to reject citizens' requests for access to information, even when there are no valid grounds to do so. Such actions could obstruct the exercise of the right to free access to information, a right also guaranteed by the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.

M. Čolak informed S. Pavlović about research being conducted by the Judicial Base South coalition concerning the misuse of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance. The goal of the research is to identify various modalities of abuse, their purpose and consequences, the frequency of such cases, the justification and potential consequences of removing the institute of abuse from the Law, the effectiveness of invoking abuse as a defense, and the possibilities public authorities have to prevent such misuse.

It was agreed that both the Judicial Base South and the Commissioner’s office, each from its own perspective, should address this issue, identify where their views align or differ, and explore opportunities for closer cooperation between civil society and the Commissioner.

The conversation touched upon the following points:

• Abuse is evident, but difficult to prove;

• The root of the problem lies in unethical lawyers using the system as a source of income;

• A particular problem is the phenomenon of “administrative silence”;

• The greatest harm is suffered by citizens who genuinely need access to information;

• The Commissioner believes that the prohibition of abuse must be interpreted as a general legal principle;

• The Law on Free Access to Information must be redefined — but carefully.

  
  

It was agreed that it is essential to find a balance: to preserve the achieved level of rights while simultaneously preventing their instrumentalization. Pavlović warned that all parties — state institutions and the civil sector alike — must be included in the process, to create a framework that allows neither censorship nor corruption under the guise of procedure. Because the moment the right to information becomes a mechanism for profit rather than a tool for truth, the foundation of trust in democracy is lost.