By Dragana Peric

Not even under the strong public pressure did the Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS) management decide to obey the law and request of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance to deliver data on earnings in this public company. This paradoxical situation of public officials violating law is possible in Serbia before all thanks to the authorities disabling functioning of independent regulatory bodies founded in order to control exactly the authorities` officials in certain areas. During recent years, several important regulatory bodies have been formed in Serbia and in the meantime, their work has been made impossible even legally and in most cases by the simplest means - financial and personnel.

The State Audit Institution, the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, the Commission for Protection of Competition, the Republic Committee for Resolving Conflict of Interests, Securities Commission, Ombudsman, the Republic Broadcasting Agency, and the Republic Telecommunication Agency are some of the regulatory bodies that have made Serbia closer to the European democratic states` standards. However, those who should do it rarely obey regulatory bodies` recommendations, opinions, and solutions. That way the purpose of their existence - corruption and power abuse preventing - is becoming worthless.

Moreover, when the Commissioner for Information has ordered NIS to deliver data on managers` earnings to the Administrative Committee of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, this public company has brought charges against the Commissioner at the Supreme Court and that way from April until today managed to avoid making the earnings in question public.

On the other hand, after the scandal with inappropriately big earnings in public companies, the Government of Serbia has managed to defend itself with the announcement on limiting those salaries. At the same time, there was not even a hint of enabling the work of the State Audit Institution (DRI), the body existing on paper and not in practice for years.

The European Union DRI match is the European Court of Auditors with authorities, such as control of implementation and spending of the European institutions` budgets, being even bigger than the legal ones our auditing has. The European Court of Auditors is an independent institution making decisions in the form of ruling force while each country has an audit institution.

In cases of possible market domination and monopoly abuse, i.e., cases of negative competition impacts competent is the EU Competition Commission that is authorised to pronounce sentences and fines while the local Commission for Protection of Competition brings possible charges to magistrate who has no authority in solving public economy cases.

According to experts, Competition Law in Serbia is a bad copy of the European one having in mind the Law does not apply to strategic companies as well as to the problem of state aid being in Serbia three to four times bigger than the European average.

In spite of everything, this Commission has demonstrated independency in its functioning announcing one commercial chain being dominant on the market. However, current trade minister has promptly reacted through the media saying they had been wrong. Soon the Government of Serbia has decided to change the rules on Commission and, incidentally or not, it has provided for replacement of the old and election of new Commission Council members.

Verica Barac, President of the Council for Fight Against Corruption, explains several ways exist for making impossible the work of regulatory bodies.

"The first being the case of excessive authorities without greater capacities and resources reduce at the same time, which is the case with the Commissioner. As is the DRI case, it is possible not to provide basic conditions for work such as premises. Besides, their resources spring from the budget and that way it is possible to limit their work. In case it starts operating, DRI will find itself in the problem of excessive authorities," says Barac adding the same applies to independent judiciary where the administrative acts judicial control does not exist.

According to her, the third way is authorities purposely not being given by law and this are the case with the Commission for Protection of Competition, the Republic Committee for Resolving Conflict of Interests, and partially with the Commissioner.

"There are several more combinations that put us constantly in the situation in which public officials announce their determinations not to obey decisions of these bodies since they are not obligatory," adds Barac.

When the Republic Committee for Resolving Conflict of Interests has established Dragan Markovic Palma had been in conflict of interests since he held two inconsistent offices - Jagodina Municipal Assembly President and Member of Parliament - he has lightly thrown back he had had no problem with that since the Committee`s opinion had not been binding for him. Even 41 percent of the Committee`s measures are regarding offices inconsistency while 59 percent is connected with reports not delivered since thousands of officials have not even handed in data on their property.

In the sphere of the European standards is it unthinkable for officials to contradict the European Ombudsman decisions while in Serbia this situation is quite customary. Reluctance of government bodies to deliver money spending data to their tax payers is so big that they would rather sue Commissioner and drag themselves through courts for months than fulfil their legal obligations. Four years upon the Free Access to Information of Public Importance Act implementation the Commissioner has been constantly reminding legislative and executive authorities to fulfil their obligations. In the meantime, the authorities (not the powers) of the Commissioner for Information have doubled and financial resources halved although he already has only five employees.

Before all, the goal of all the mentioned regulatory bodies is preventing corruption, securing transparent and responsible government but no one has authorities or obligatory effect as does the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).

Local regulatory bodies mostly depend on police reaction and judiciary independence while the OLAF is an investigative authority capable of "searching" European administration employees from time to time. It can influence regulations change in a way that the OLAF decision to demand report for "possible irregularities" regarding numerous Brussels employees` payments can influence the European Parliament General Secretary to propose changes in the system of personnel engagement and management.

Respecting different formal and legal status of each controlling body in Serbia, Nemanja Nenadic, of the Transparency Serbia, says all the bodies have different problems but none of them has the power provided by law.

"Essentially these bodies are not able to work. Their functioning cannot be compared with any EU corresponding body since the European bodies have almost repressive authorities. On our way joining the EU we will not have to change those bodies and their authorities - our obligation will be to cooperate with the European ones," says Nenadic.

Regulatory bodies` problems do not have to be financial or legislative since some of them, such as the Republic Broadcasting Agency, and the Republic Telecommunication Agency have decent incomes and authorities.

However, since the beginning these two institutions have been functioning the way similar to the one their European matches once used to. When the media control is in question, the problem of constant authorities` attempts to limit the work of those bodies has existed everywhere. However, in media commercial influence has quickly become more important than the political one. The control has become easier but somehow in Serbia these two agencies` work independence has still not been obvious in practice.