By The European Times | Created at 2026-09-28 09:56:53 | Updated at 2026-09-29 11:56:42
1 day ago
Access-to-information protections remain only as effective as public authorities’ willingness to answer
BELGRADE, 28 September 2026: Serbia marked International Right to Know Day on Monday with renewed attention on a basic democratic principle: information held by public institutions should normally be available to the people those institutions serve.
The event was organised by the Office of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection together with the OSCE Mission to Serbia. Their long-standing cooperation has sought to strengthen institutions while helping citizens, journalists and civil-society organisations exercise their right to obtain public records.
Serbia has a comparatively strong legal framework. Its access-to-information law establishes a presumption that information held by public authorities is open when there is a justified public interest. It also creates an independent commissioner who can review refusals and failures to respond.
The harder question is whether that framework operates reliably in practice.
When no answer becomes the answer
The European Commission’s most recent country assessment recorded that Serbia’s commissioner resolved 15,282 access-to-information complaints in 2024, up from 10,594 the previous year. Half concerned requests that public institutions had simply ignored.
The execution rate for the commissioner’s decisions stood at just under 78 per cent. That represented an improvement, but it also meant that a significant share of binding decisions had not been fully implemented.
These figures illustrate why administrative silence can be as damaging as an explicit refusal. A formal rejection gives the applicant reasons that can be challenged. No response forces the citizen or journalist to spend additional time pursuing an appeal while the information may lose its immediate public value.
Delays are particularly consequential when records concern active public procurement, environmental risks, state spending or decisions taken during an election campaign. Information disclosed months later may still matter for accountability, but it can no longer inform public participation at the moment a decision is being made.
A right for everyone
Access laws are sometimes treated as specialist tools for investigative reporters and anti-corruption organisations. Their scope is broader.
A resident may need information about local construction, air quality, school administration or the management of a public utility. Workers may seek records concerning safety rules. Community organisations may need budget information to understand why a service has been reduced or a promised project delayed.
Journalists and civic groups nevertheless perform an important intermediary role. A single records request can make complex contracts, regulatory decisions or spending data understandable to a much larger audience.
This is also why institutions should publish frequently requested information proactively. A transparent online register can reduce administrative costs, prevent repetitive requests and make information available equally rather than only to those with the knowledge and time to navigate an appeal.
Transparency and privacy are complementary
Serbia’s commissioner is responsible for both public information and personal-data protection. Those mandates may appear to conflict, but they address different questions.
Access rules require authorities to disclose information connected with public duties and legitimate public interests. Data-protection rules safeguard personal information that should not be exposed merely because an institution possesses it.
Public bodies should therefore assess whether protected details can be redacted while the remainder of a document is released. Privacy should not become a blanket justification for withholding records, just as transparency should not be used to disclose sensitive personal data without a lawful basis.
Accountability ahead of elections
The observance comes less than a month before Serbia’s early parliamentary election. Access to public records is especially important during campaign periods, when questions about state resources, official advertising and institutional decision-making carry immediate political significance.
The right to information complements election observation and media freedom. Voters cannot make fully informed choices when essential facts about public action remain inaccessible or arrive only after the polls close.
Similar principles apply at EU level, where European Times guidance on transparency rules has explained that access normally concerns identifiable documents rather than a general entitlement to have institutions create new information.
International Right to Know Day offers a useful moment to explain legal rights. Its more demanding purpose is to measure whether those rights work on an ordinary day, when a citizen submits a request and expects a timely, reasoned response.
