Serbia Celebrates Citizens’ Right to Know Day
Transparency of information is the key to providing public accountability for institutions and services in transitional societies. Too often information about public initiatives and government sectors fail to reach its intended audience – in this case, the citizens of Serbia. By helping to celebrate International Right to Know Day on September 26, 2008, USAID’s Rule of Law implementer, the American Bar Association (ABA), was able to assist the people of Serbia in coming one step closer to fully realizing their right of free access to information.
The celebration began with a public awareness campaign through which materials such as leaflets, posters, and T-shirts were distributed to citizens in Novi Sad, Belgrade, and Novi Pazar in preparation for the award ceremonies. An advertisement for the event, specially designed to raise recognition and support for ’Your Right to Know’, was published in Serbian dailies leading up to the day. On September 26, the award ceremony marking International Right to Know Day was held at Belgrade’s Media Center with a direct videolink to the Media Center in Nis.
The winner of this year’s award was the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, in conjunction with the Network of Regional Chambers of Commerce. Three Honorable Mention certificates were presented to the First Municipal Court in Belgrade, the Secretariat for Information of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina and the City of Šabac. These institutions were selected by a nine-member awards committee who found them to most closely fulfill the award’s criteria of increasing public access to information as specifically set forth by the Office of the Public Information Commissioner.
The event proved successful as a number of important speakers and guests highlighted the value of the public information process. The awards were attended by journalists from 18 different media organizations and representatives from over 40 various state institutions, civil society organizations, and international organizations. Remarks at the ceremony were given by the Republic of Serbia’s Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, the Head of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, as well as the Ombudsman of the Republic of Serbia. Judge Charles Simpson, President of the U.S. Committee for International Judicial Relations and former Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, attended as a special guest.
USAID’s Rule of Law program, implemented by ABA with partners across Serbian society, has succeeded in creating greater awareness about the importance of freedom to information. The Rule of Law Program implements trainings for Municipal Public Information Officers throughout Serbia in conjunction with the Standing Conference for Towns and Municipalities to improve public transparency practices at the local level. On International Right to Know Day, Serbian recognizes best practices of state institutions at all levels – a process worth celebrating.
 |
 |
| All award recipients with Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government Milan Markovic (center). |
A poster reads “September 28, International Right to Know Day, YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW... Everybody has the right to know whether a state institution is in possession of an certain information of public interest, i.e. whether this information is available to the institution in question. Everybody has the right to be granted access to the information of public interest, be it by being given insight into the document which contains the information, the right to receive a copy of the document, or to, upon request, receive a copy of the document by mail, fax, electronic mail or any other means.” (Article 5, Freedom of Information Act of the Republic of Serbia) |
Back to Top ^ |
