The Report on the implementation of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance and the Law on Personal Data Protection was presented by the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection Rodoljub Sabic. The Commissioner said that many of the complaints he receives are completely unnecessary and that many of them concern the institutions’ ignoring requests to access information of public importance. The Commissioner said that since the mechanism was instated its efficiency has grown each year, up until 2016 when it has for the first time dropped by 4%, measured in information received, while the number of valid complaints has grown by 2%. The fact that the number of the Commissioner’s orders requesting that the executive bodies make certain information accessible has dropped by 10% in 2016, making it 73.6% of orders accepted, is particularly worrying. The Commissioner also suggested that the Committee analyse the conclusions on the reports passed so far because there is a need to boost that National Assembly’s control over the Government so as to enable the implementation of the recommendations from the reports of independent bodies.

Commissioner for Protection of Equality Brankica Jankovic presented the Commissioner for Protection of Equality 2016 Regular Annual Report to the Committee members. She said that many of the citizens lack the knowledge necessary to recognize discrimination. The Commissioner’s research shows that the citizens believe the LGBT population, Roma and the poor to be the most discriminated social groups, and work and employment to be the social area suffering from most cases of discrimination. In the last year the Republic of Serbia has set up a good anti-discrimination framework. Aware of the importance of human rights and non-discrimination, it had ratified the most important universal and regional human rights and anti-discrimination treaties. The complaints the Commissioner had received in 2016 show that women and persons with disabilities suffer most from discrimination in Serbia, followed by age-related discrimination, which is much in keeping with the 2015 trends, as well as the situation observed in past years. In 2016 the Commissioner handled 1,346 cases, 626 of which were complaints submitted to the Commissioner by individual citizens and 665 recommended pro-equality measures. The Commissioner also gave 40 opinions to draft laws and other general documents, filed three criminal charges, one request for misdemeanour charges, one proposal for the assessment of constitutionality and legality, one initiative to amend a law and issued nine warnings and 25 press statements. It passed opinions on 51 complaints, in five of which no discrimination was ascertained and appropriate recommendations were given, while the rest were found to be instances of discrimination. 14 were found to be cases of discrimination against groups (LGBT, persons with disabilities, Roma, women, etc.), while the others were cases of discrimination against individuals. In 76.7% of the cases the recommendations were followed. Most of the recommendations ignored concern complaints of discrimination based on sexual orientation. Of the recommendations concerning equality submitted to public administration bodies and other entities, 93.9% were followed, which, along with the other recommendations issues in individual cases, on average amounts to 85.3% of recommendations followed.

The sitting was chaired by Committee Chairman Meho Omerovic and attended by the following Committee members and deputy members: Elvira Kovacs, Ljiljana Malusic, Tatjana Macura, Ljibuska Lakatos, Natasa St. Jovanovic, Dragana Kostic, Milena Turk, Olivera Ognjanovic, Marjana Maras, Olena Papuga and Enis Imamovic.