13. 06. 2013

GOVERNMENT WANTS CONTROL OVER INTERNET

Belgrade, June 13, 2013 (Danas) - The Ministry of Trade and Telecommunications has created the draft Rulebook that stipulates the unconstitutional interception of electronic communications, as well the access and delivery of withheld data to Serbian state security agencies, disrespectful of the courts' decision.

The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection Rodoljub Sabic has strenuously criticized this intention of the Ministry. However, despite Sabic's critics, the Ministry of Trade and Telecommunications has rejected his objections.

"In line with the Constitution, the only document that may be used the legal grounds for acting contrary to the constitutionally guaranteed right to secrecy of communications is the court decision. There are also decisions of the Constitutional Court pertaining to the constitutionality of the provisions of the Law on Military Security Agency and Military Intelligence Agency, as well as earlier Law on Telecommunications, in which the Constitutional Court had clearly confirmed that only decision of the court might be the legal grounds for acting contrary to the constitutionally guaranteed right to secrecy of letters and other means of communications, hence other grounds were not in line with the Constitution", Sabic said.

In the Ministry of Trade and Telecommunications say that some of the remarks of the Commissioner would be accepted and other considered in the public consultations that were planned to begin by the end of this week and last until the end of June.

However, according to the state secretary for telecommunications Stefan Lazarevic, the term "decision of the court" cannot be introduced to replace the term "document", which is currently used in the Proposed Rulebook.

"This remark will however be considered when the amendments to the Law on Electronic Communications come to the top of the agenda, given that, when this proposed rulebook is concerned, we are tied by the article of the Law on Electronic Communications providing for literate introduction of this document", Lazarevic said.