Data Commissioner’s Office warns of obstruction

Deputy Commissioner Stanojla Mandic told a parliament committee that the state bodies refused to grant access to data and added that threats were made against staff as well as groundless criminal charges.  

Mandic was submitting the report to the judiciary, state administration and local government committee on the institution‘s operations because parliament has not appointed a new commissioner since Roboljub Sabic stepped down at the end of his term in office several months ago.  

The Office of the Commissioner was also publicly accused of embezzlement but the State Auditing Institution found no sign of wrongdoing, she said.  

Mandic said that received 17,000 complaints and requests and manged to deal with 14,000 in 2018 and added that negative trends were reported in the field of access to public information. She warned that the negative trends has been present since 2015. She said that 70 percent of the orders issued by the Office are implemented because the office no longer has the right to punish wrongdoers under the new law on administrative proceedings and added that private individuals file charges for failure to implement orders but most are rejected by courts for procedural reasons.  

The Deputy Commissioner warned that the new law on personal data protection is impossible to implement without amendments just as the European Commission said.