Presenting the Annual Report, Ombudsman Sasa Jankovic said that it contained all the general and specific evaluations and data on civil rights, information on the ascertained major and typical flaws in the operation of administrative bodies and gives suggestions on how to improve the legality and regularity of the operation of administrative bodies. Jankovic stressed that when it comes to human and minority rights, the following population categories emerged as most vulnerable: the extremely poor, children, persons with disabilities, national minorities with the Roma as the most disadvantaged among them, the seriously ill and women.

The 2013 Report on the implementation of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance and the Law on Personal Data Protection was presented to the Committee members by the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and the Law on Personal Data Protection Rodoljub Sabic. He stated that the in 2013 the citizens of Serbia had exercised their right to access information of public importance more extensively than in previous years. He added that the citizens showed the most interest in how the administrative bodies handle the budget and other public funds, whether state authorities and other administrative bodies performed their duties according to the law, particularly the cadastre office, police, public prosecution and the courts, public enterprises, etc., while the most common applicants for information were individual citizens and journalists.

The Committee members then proceeded to adopt the Conclusion Proposal on the Commissioner for Protection of Equality 2013 Regular Annual Report reviewed at the fifth sitting of the Committee on Human and Minority Rights and Gender Equality.

The Committee members also adopted the Conclusion Proposal relating to the reviewed Ombudsman’s 2013 Regular Annual Report and the Conclusion Proposal relating to the reviewed 2013 Report on the implementation of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance and the Law on Personal Data Protection.

The sitting was chaired by Committee Chairman Meho Omerovic.