A letter to the Assembly: Proposal of criteria for selection of the new Commissioner

The organisation  Crta launched a campaign “I want a Commissioner, not a yes-man!”, in order to draw attention to the fact that the process of selection of the Commissioner should be initiated and that the criteria of transparency, openness and integrity must be respected. Besides, the citizens should be informed about the identity of the potential candidates for the function, so that the new Commissioner could continue to perform their duties as an independent professional entity.

All interested citizens can send a letter to the Assembly via the website srbijadoinformacija.rs,  with criteria proposed  by more than 80 civil society organisations,  using the tool available on this link.

The mandate of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection expired in December 2018, and the process of selection of a new Commissioner has not yet been launched. Having in mind the importance of the Commissioner as an independent institution, the broadly set requirements stipulated by the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance and the new Law on Personal Data Protection, criteria that the Committee should apply in the process of selection of a new Commissioner were proposed. The Committee was prompted to consider the proposed criteria, to apply them when selecting candidates for a new Commissioner and to enable the public to be adequately informed and involved in this process.

Civil society organisations have repeatedly filed demands to the relevant Committee for Culture and Information of the Assembly to respond whether the Commissioner’s selection procedure has been initiated, who the potential candidates are, and asked them to publicly publishes candidates’ biographies.

The requested answers represent the minimum transparency requirement of each electoral process, while the standards of openness and inclusiveness of the Commissioner’s appointment process are far higher in all European countries.

Organisation even sent an initiative for an urgent initiation of the procedure, as well as criteria for selection and conduct of the process that would enable citizens to obtain an independent professional Commissioner.The Committee considered neither of proposals. Meanwhile, Rodoljub Šabić’s mandate expired.