Department for Information Leakage

Two issues are problematic despite the fact that it appears that police officials seem resolved to prevent the information leakage from the police in Serbia once and for all.

By Sasa Djordjevic (BCSP) / Photo: Shutterstock
@Bambayay

Serbia is a captured state, completely subjected to the whims of the political parties. Because of its insufficient institutional capacities, Serbia is not able either to formulate or implement public policies. New organisational units are being created, subjugated to the politicians who tend to abuse them. The solution to the problem of information leakage from the most sensitive police investigations requires that the competences of the newly established Department for Security and Data Protection are transferred to the Sector for Internal Control.

It is often the case that information, believed to be in the possession of police, are extracted from this institution, published or forwarded to certain individuals. The said information is usually subject of manipulation, often for the narrow interests of political parties instead for the purposes of tackling crime or corruption. The problem is further exacerbated when the executive branch of the government institutionally subjugates the process of information leakage for its purposes, with the view to allegedly preventing possible abuses. This is how the new Department for Security and Data Protection was created. It is within its remit to collect and analyse operational data for the purposes of preventing leaks of secret information to the non-authorised individuals from the police.

However, two issues remain problematic, despite the fact that it appears that police officials seem resolved to prevent the information leakage from the police once and for all.

The Department for Security and Data Protection is not apt to prevent political abuse of information from the police—this only seems plausible if the Department’s personnel refuse to execute the tasks that are not in line with the positive law. From the organisational perspective, the Department is directly subordinated to the Minister of Interior who is a member of the executive and, most often, a member of the ruling party. The Department’s Head is responsible only to the Minister of Interior. There is no other instance between the Head of the Department and the Minister, which is the case, for example, with the Department for Fight against Organised Crime that is placed within the Criminal Police Directorate. The Department for Security and Data Protection has no guaranteed independence, which is the key precondition for control and prevention of politically motivated information leaks from the police.

Moreover, with the creation of the new Department, the internal control mechanisms of the MoI are becoming additionally convoluted. This Department is fifth in the row among the organisational units of the MoI with control functions, in addition to the Sector for Internal Control; separate departments for control of the work of Belgrade Police Directorate, Police Directorate and Gendarmerie; and the Department for Complaints. The Law on Police (Art. 225) clearly proscribes that the Sector for Internal Control is the only responsible unit for controlling the legality of the MoI’s employees’ work, and not any other part of the Ministry. It would be only logical and in line with the law that the prevention of information leakage, as a serious breach of the official duty according to the Law on Police (Art. 207), is conducted by the Sector.

Not all of the problems that the European Commission identified in the Screening Report for Chapter 23 almost three years ago will be solved in this manner. The Screening Report recommends that Serbia needs to take urgent steps with the view to preventing information leaks, particularly those from the ongoing or planned police investigations. In the recently adopted Action Plan for Chapter 23, the Government committed to develop an “ideal model” for the detection of offenders and proving criminal offence of disclosing official secrets (Activity 2.3.7.3.) by the second quarter of 2016. Maybe the newly formed Department for Security and Data Protection is an ideal model for determining where does the information leakage take place, but it is definitely not ideal for proving that information leakage is used for the narrowly defined political purposes.

The possibility for the political abuse of police information increases if an effective system of internal control is not put in place, which is the case with the Serbian police. In such an environment, police information is in possession of certain political interest groups that have the power to decide how to release them. The system the foundations of which were established during the mandate of the previous government is being further perfected by the incumbent one. The executive branch of the Government has the ability to exert complete control over, but also to abuse, the information from police. This state of play is dangerous for a society where a fully developed political culture does not exist.