Results of the Center for Democracy’s project “Citizens for Inspection Reform” were publicly presented
Preparation of action plan for harmonization of the new Inspection Oversight Law with other laws, unification of particular inspection services within national jurisdiction, establishment of mechanisms for coordination of inspection services at the local level and defining the mechanisms for control of the inspectors’ work are merely few of the recommendation Center for Democracy Foundation presented among the results of the project “Citizens for Inspection Reform”; financed by EU through the Civil Society Support Program in Republic of Serbia. The Project was launched in 2014 aiming to increase the participation of CSOs and citizens in the work of public administration.
“Within the project we formed a Committee of expert associates, talked with inspectors in seven local municipalities throughout Serbia, conducted a research on inspections that involved five thousands citizens and included six CSOs into debate on the topic of inspection reforms. In addition, we have organized street actions, which informed the citizens of Belgrade, Kraljevo, Kikinda, Knjaževac and Požega,” stated Tijana Kljajević, project coordinator from Center for Democracy Foundation.
“During work on the project Citizens for Inspection Reform, we have designed recommendations to contribute inspection system reform, which we forwarded to decision makers. These recommendations are aimed at adopting additional regulations and overcoming the obstacles in order to attain an efficient inspection oversight on all levels”, said Jelena Jerinić, lecturer of the Faculty of Law, Union University from Belgrade.
“Wishing to actively involve citizens in the very process of inspection system reform, we have formed six new mobile/web applications, which are aimed at improving the communication between citizens and inspections. Based upon the popular votes and remarks of the expert committee, three applications were proclaimed as the best ones. These applications tackle communal problems, alleviate the citizens reporting to inspection services and enable direct monitoring of the whole process”, said Lana Čubrić, Project Assistant at Dokukino Foundation.
According to the representatives of Center for Democracy, the adoption of systemic Inspection Oversight Law is by all means a progress compared to the previous situation, especially treating the issues that were not regulated at all. Positive side of the new Inspection Oversight Law is certainly reflected in intensification of its prevention role, improvement of the coordination between inspection services and overcoming the problem of overlap in their work; which leads to better efficiency of the system. On the other side, there are many more steps towards the trued reform to be undertaken.
Center for Democracy Foundation
