10. 02. 2011

AMENDED RULES OF PROCEDURE WITH OMBUDSMAN’S APPROVAL

Belgrade, February 10, 2011 (Politika) - At the end of February, the Serbian Parliament will abolish its ability to initiate proceedings for the dismissal of an independent "controllers of the authorities" if the parliamentary majority doesn't like their report. This will be ensured with amended Rules of Procedure, brought in consultation with Ombudsman Sasa Jankovic.

All representatives of the ruling coalition agreed that the new solutions were good. However, they did not share this opinion six months ago when they adopted, in the absence of opposition, the Rules which they are now amending. Furthermore, no objections were taken into consideration, above all suggestions of Sasa Jankovic and Rodoljub Sabic, Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection. Only when the EC report on the progress listed this provision as a bad solution, everyone from the ruling coalition had agreed to eliminate this gap as soon as possible.

Sasa Jankovic said that he had, in response to the request of the Parliament Speaker Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic, given "basic view of how the relationship between the independent monitoring bodies and the National Assembly should have been regulated". According to him, it is important that the independence and freedom of evaluation of the Government institutions functioning be provided, as well as the responsibility of independent monitoring bodies.