07. 05. 2003

300,000-dinar fine for discrimination of journalists

BELGRADE, May 7, 2003 – FoNet has learnt that the Serbian Government’s draft law on access to information of public importance stipulates that state bodies of power must not favour any individual journalist or media company by exclusively revealing information, granting access to a document containing public information or supplying copies of such documents. State body employees will be subjected to a fine of between 30,000 and 300,000 dinars if they are deemed to have “violated the principles of equality; discriminated against a journalist or media company; failed to grant access to true and complete information, i.e. failed to permit access to a document containing such information or failed to issue journalists or media companies with copies of such documents in the language in which the request was made”.