Rodoljub Šabić sued for expressing his opinion at the session of the Press Council’s Complaints Commission

(Source: NUNS) A member of the Press Council’s Complaints Commission, lawyer Rodoljub Šabić, said last night at the session of this body that attorney Nemanja Aleksic filed a lawsuit against him for violation of honor and reputation because at the previous session, when Aleksic’s complaint was decided on by the Press Council, he said that “he is inclined to present untrue facts.”

“On February 29, we had a session here and discussed the appeal of Aleksic’s lawyer. At the time, I was against the motion to adopt this complaint and i argued my opinion. Then I said that he is inclined to present untrue facts and that he presents the facts fragmentarily,” Šabić said.

As he stated, he argued his position with the case of “Vesic’s Mobile Office”, which the then Deputy Mayor of Belgrade Goran Vesic said was a gift from Aleksic, and when they realized that this was actually violating the Law on Prevention of Corruption, a contract appeared that shows that this was not a gift to Vesic, but to the City Assembly.

Tamara Filipovic Stevanovic, secretary general of the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia, says this is a new way of pressuring the Complaints Commission that has not been seen before.

“The Press Council and the Complaints Commission of this self-regulating body are, according to all reports of domestic and international organizations and institutions, the healthiest media tissue in Serbia. We, as one of the founders of the Council, expected that, now that the decisions of the Press Council have received their rightful place in the Law on Public Information in the part related to the allocation of citizens’ money to the media for the production of content in the interest of the public, the Press Council will be under additional pressure from all those who do not adhere to the standards of the profession and those who support such an attitude”,  said Tamara Filipović Stevanovic.

The new Law on Public Information and Media stipulates a provision according to which the Ministry of Information, the Provincial Secretariat for Information and Local Self-Government must take into account the decisions of the Press Council Complaints Commission when deciding which media will be allocated money through a competition for co-financing media production projects.