Honoured participants of the Conference

I will use the opportunity to extend my gratitude to the organizers and the chairperson of the conference Mr. Muhamed Gjoka from the Montenegrin counterpart, who in cooperation with the representative of the OSCE gathered the representatives of regional institutions mandated to protect the citizen's right to access public documents.
Today, I will express before you my opinion regarding the right on information, respectively access to public documents, in the capacity of the head of the sole authority of the Republic of Kosovo mandated to supervise the implementation of the law on personal data protection.

The citizens of the Republic of Kosovo use the right to access public documents directly through officials of state institutions to access documents. The current law is undergoing amendments to better regulate the access procedures, and the Ombudsperson currently serves as a second instance, to which the citizens address their complaints whenever their requests are not addressed within the legal deadline.
While following the regional trends, the institutions of the Republic of Kosovo in cooperation with the European Union Office are working in improving the Kosovo’s legal framework covering the field of access to public information and protection of personal data, whereby in the region fusing them into a single umbrella is proving to be a good practice. In this regard, the Office of OSCE in Kosovo continues to give a valuable contribution;
In the meantime, allow me to briefly inform you about the current activities of the National Agency for Protection of Personal Data, unfolding before you its vision toward expected challenges in near future.

While implementing its legal mandate, the Agency acted in accordance with balance between personal data protection and public interest, whereby always dominated the spirit of respecting the law and essential public interest.
The Agency already established its credibility within Kosovo, region and beyond. I would like to emphasise that we cooperate closely with all institutions and mechanisms in regional, European, and international level.

The institution I manage provided comments and opinions on the requests submitted by local and central level state institutions, non-government organizations, written and electronic media, private companies, banking sector, etc. We have also received requests for provision of opinions regarding the access to public documents in relation to personal data protection and protection of individual privacy.

The Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo guarantees the right of access to public documents, as well as the right to personal data protection.

Furthermore, the Agency has carried out nearly four hundred inspections and controls in many public and private institutions, while it is also developing the agency's file registration, whereby the whole focus of this work is to supervise and implement the Law on Protection of Personal Data.

Honourable participants,
The written assignment of personal data protection officials is a legal obligation to public institutions, which the Agency with great devotion has managed to apply to the majority of state institutions, and a considerable number of private bodies. In this regard, with the help of the European Union through the IPA project, we have organized many trainings and expertises to these officials. While considering it necessary to the educational aspect of the personal data protection officials, the Agency in cooperation with personal data protection experts drafted the general curriculum for these officials.
The right to access public documents and personal data protection are two closely related rights and the balance of such rights is a necessity for a democratic society, and is to the interest of fundamental human rights and freedoms.
As mentioned above, access to public documents in Kosovo is not managed by a particular authority. Therefore, the Agency received a significant number of requests by the civil society, media, institutions and individuals requesting access to public documents, regardless to the fact that the Agency is only mandated to supervise the implementation of the LPDP. In Accordance with our legal obligations, we issued 30 opinions, provided responses, advices and rendered decisions in more than 180 requests submitted this year, whereby most of them were related to access to public documents. The Agency's Opinions in one hand always prioritized the public's interest to be informed and their right to privacy on the other hand.
Similarly to the previous year, the Agency with the support of the OSCE, this year organized local level workshops in five regions regarding the protection of personal data and access to public documents for the municipal officials, civil society and the media.
Regardless of the government level decision regarding the accreditation for the supervision of the right to access public documents, the Agency remains committed to its current mandate and is also open and ready to assume the additional mandate of implementing the law on access to public documents, if local and international experts consider that NAPDP should assume such a mandate. The diversity of our culture, and common aspirations to join the EU, are prosperity values of the Balkans based on which we should build our unique platform of common action to the best interest of the citizens of the region!      
Finally, I thank you for your attention, and welcome any question you might have.