Serbia Appoints New Ruling Party-Backed Information Commissioner

Milan Marinovic, the candidate proposed by the Serbian parliament's Committee for Culture and Information, was chosen as Serbia's new Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection on Friday evening.

Most opposition MPs were not present for the vote.

Marinovic is currently the president of the Misdemeanour Court in Belgrade, a post he has held since 2014. He has worked as a judge at the court since 2009 and was a member of a couple of working groups responsible for drafting laws.

Access to information about state and public institutions is guaranteed by Serbia's constitution and protected by law, and the Information Commissioner is an independent figure in charge of monitoring whether or not the law is being respected.

There were three proposed candidates for the Information Commissioner position - Marinovic, Nevena Ruzic and Bojan Milosavljevic.

Marinovic was proposed by the governing Serbian Progressive Party, and got 10 out of 11 votes from committee members.

Ruzic was proposed by the opposition Party of Modern Serbia, the Democratic Party and Social Democratic Party, People's Party parliamentary group.

She has worked at the Office of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection since May 2009. She got one vote.

Milosavljevic was proposed by the Socialist Movement, National Peasant Party and United Peasant Party, but got no votes.

Since the role of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection was established in 2004, the position has been held by Rodoljub Sabic for two mandates.

Earlier this year, civil society groups in Serbia criticised the process for selecting the new Information Commissioner...