Panel Discussion on Access to Information of Public Importance in Cases of War Crimes

A meeting regarding the topic of access to information of public importance in cases of war crimes was held on April 4th, 2016, in the Library of the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC). The participants in the meeting were representatives of the Office of the Commissioner for Access to Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Balkan Investigative Network in Serbia, the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights, Partners for Democratic Change Serbia, as well as other experts.

The panel discussion covered two topics: (1) anonymization and access to information in cases of war crimes and (2) the recording of main trials in cases of war crimes and storing of documents related to war crimes trials. The participants in this panel discussion talked about the need to adopt the Rules for the Anonymization of Court Decisions in the Higher Court and the application thereof; the conflict between the provisions of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance and the Law on Personal Data Protection; the possibility to record main hearing sessions in cases of war crimes; the storing of documents related to war crimes trials, and so forth.

The recommendations from the panel discussion will be included in the Report on Access to Information of Public Importance in Cases of War Crimes, which the HLC will publish as part of the project „Supporting the Monitoring of National War Crimes Trials“, supported by the OSCE Mission in Serbia.