Parliament works for BIA and not for citizens

Belgrade, June 15. 2010 (Source : B92) - The ruling coalition in Serbia has no intention of forcing security services to obtain court permission if they want to follow who, with whom, for how long and when is communicating by phone or via Internet. It is obvious that the amendment to the law on electronic communications suggested by Ombudsman Sasa Jankovic for protection of privacy of communications is not going to be accepted by the Parliament. As one of the reasons for refusal of the Ombudsman’s proposal mentioned by the whip of the ‘For European Serbia’ caucus Nada Kolundzija is that the amendment has not been filed ‘in line with the parliamentary procedure’. Jankovic denied that claim at his site and presented electronic copy of the document forwarded to Serbian Parliament. On the other hand the ruling coalition has accepted amendment to article 130 which includes supervision by the Secretary for information of public importance. If we are talking about possible abuse of authority that security services have, then we think a debate should be opened over that topic and see if laws defining that sphere should be changed. This is a basic law in the field of telecommunications and it cannot define segments such as judicial system and security services. If somebody thinks that this is not in line with the Constitution, then opinion by the Constitutional Court of Serbia can be requested. If that court rules otherwise, that decision has to be respected. We think it is not in contradiction with the Constitution’, Kolundzija said