TI BiH won the dispute against the Republic Administration for Geodetic and Property Affairs referring to the delivery of information on property owned by 44 politicians

Transparency International BiH won the administrative dispute against the Republic Administration for Geodetic and Property Affairs (RUGIP) which means that the Decision rejecting the request for submission of property deeds and excerpts from the Land Registry for 44 politicians was declared null and void. The requested information referred to the assets owned by Nikola Spiric, Nedeljko Cubrilovic, Mico Micic, Milanko Mihajlica, Igor Radojicic, Milica  Markovic, Nada Tesanovic, Gavrilo Bobar, Petar Djokic and others, and RUGIP kept refusing to provide the same stating it was private information.

The District Court in Banja Luka took the view that „the Land Registry is a registry of public interest, and the public Registry of real rights over the real estate“, confirming thus the allegations given in the lawsuit filed by TI BiH that this is the public information in accordance with the applicable legislation, regardless of the fact that they refer to the individual information of physical entities.

TI BiH considers this to be an extremely important judgment since the court confirmed that information on property cannot be considered personal and private, and that public authorities acting upon requests for access to information should take into account the importance of free access to information controlled by the public authorities. It is particularly important since it refers to the information on property owned by politicians who, being public figures engaged in the activities of public interest, should voluntarily make available and public all information that may influence their performance. Some politicians,  such as Mladen Bosic, Ognjen Tadic, Nikola Spiric and Vukota Govedarica, stated that they are not against having the information on their property published, while for example, Igor Radojicic, former president of the National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska, and member of the current Assembly, thinks that it is personal information, which therefore cannot be available to the public.

Press-rls-25-08-2015-doc eng