"There is no awareness of possible embezzlements and manipulations, as well as violation of human rights in this area, because there is no protection system, neither of privacy, nor of personal data. Until the adoption of this law, it practically did not exist", says Sabic.
Personal Data Protection Law guarantees protection for everybody, regardless of citizenship, residency, racial and sexual orientation, language, religion, political or any other opinion, nationality, origin, assets, education, social position, etc. Especially sensitive are data on nationality, racial issue, gender, language, religion, political or any other opinion, union membership, health condition, sexual life, sexual harassment, social aid or crime verdicts. Data processing is carefully determined and protected by system of measures.
If necessarily, state authority is allowed to process data without one`s approval acquired, if security interests, criminal procedures, protection of economic, health, legal and other public interests require so.
However, certain obscurity remains, and it concerns article 54 of the Law, which gives state a permission to deny Commissioner an access to personal data and its sources, if, as it is explained, "national and government safety requires so".
"It basically means that I`m not allowed to access data classification process, and that indicates that various secret services have possibilities for power abusing of all kind, phone tapping, interception of internet communication and e-mails, and so on", says Sabic.
Classification of Secrets Law is the third, and final, legislation that Serbia needs to adopt. Together with Montenegro, Serbia is, alike in many other things, among last countries in Europe which lacks this law. Without precise definition, any banality could be proclaimed as a secret, but serious information, instead of being under protection, could be top issue in media.
Everybody agrees that Serbia has too much secret information. From salaries of state firms` directors, alimentation list for army, highway construction contract, to sale of national oil company, etc.
"It has to be defined who has power to acclaim information as a secret, what is the designation of secret information, and who has the access to confidential data and under which conditions. According to the Classification of Secrets Law proposal, secrets can be acclaimed by presidents of the State, Parliament, Supreme and Constitutional Court, State prosecutor, Chief of General Staff, Security Information Agency`s Chief, as well as ministers for foreign affairs, national security policy, intelligence and counter-intelligence services", underlines Sabic, adding that access to secret information will be allowed to state officials who have Security Information Agency`s certificate, while high state officials and parliamentarians will not need the certificate for accessing these information.
Serbian Commissioner explains that, after Classification of Secrets Law is being adopted, no economic affair on state level will be designated as secret, as it was recently done with financial details of Horgos-Pozega highway construction contract.
When Serbian Minister of Defence Dragan Sutanovac signed Information Security Agreement on October 8 2008 in Brussels, NATO officials could not stop wondering the fact that small Serbia has more secrets that the most powerful military Alliance in the world. The very same Minister has made the first and important step in revealing secrecy. Sutanovac has decided to reveal some secret facts, thanks to Youth Initiative for Human rights` request which demands an answer on how many people were tapped by Military Intelligence Service. According to that information, during 2007 Military Intelligence Service has received 35 warrants from amenable judge for "controlling, phone tapping and interception of communications in other form". It is still unknown how many people in Serbia are being under these measures by civil intelligence services.
When it comes to secrecy, European experiences are diverse, yet quite systematic. Spain, for example, a country with 39 million inhabitants, has only six documents designated as "top secret". Slovenian authorities possess 11 million documents, among which 16.000 are classified as secrets of various levels of secrecy: 2.000 are assigned as "secret" or "confidential", while "unclassified" represents the lowest level of sensitivity. It is interesting to mention that Slovenia has no document designated as "top secret", which is the highest level of data protection. The fact is that Slovenian authorities believe that there is no information of such importance!
Law on revealing secret files is the next inevitable step. It signifies facing with the past, i.e. material that will certainly help us understand contemporary history, as well as a request for all types of information disclosure.
"In democratic society, one that has been illegally processed by secret services has right to access files, and that right cannot be disputable", says Sabic.
Sabic also reminds that all ex-communist countries have already adopted laws which, partly or entirely, allow free access to previous regime`s secret files, adding that Serbia has to "work serious and responsible on draft proposal and its eventual adoption".
* Published: 2008/10/24
