REACTION: The entire Committee on Security and Defense Affairs should not serve as the Selection Panel for the election of the Commissioner of the Agency for Information and Privacy (AIP)

Shpërndaje në:

Pristine, 18 MAY 2021 – We, the following organizations, are monitoring for the fourth time the selection process of the Commissioner of the Agency for Information and Privacy (AIP), continuously contributing to the development of a fair process and preventing the selection of not worthy candidates. Through this reaction we express our concern about the recent decision of the Commission which determines that each member of this Commission is a participant in the Selection Panel for the evaluation and selection of the shortlist of candidates for the election of the Commissioner of the Agency for Information and Privacy (AIP).This decision was taken at the meeting held on 20.04.2021 with 6 (six) votes FOR and 2 (two) votes against.

The selection of this Panel is regulated by the Law on Personal Data Protection, respectively by Article 60 of this law.

In accordance with paragraph 5 of this article, the Selection Panel submits to the relevant Commission the list of candidates for Commissioner, to then proceed with the selection of the shortlist. The Commission proposal proposes the reason why the Panel has given priority to some candidates, compared to other candidates.

This means that in this case, the shortlist of candidates for Commissioner of the Information and Privacy Agency, the Selection Panel would submit and justify itself.

This action of the deputies of this Commission, in addition to contradicting the previous practice decided by the members of the Commission of previous legislatures, creates a negative precedent that would directly affect the legitimacy of the entire selection process of the Commissioner of the Information Agency and Privacy.

Based on the political representation of the members of this Commission, the composition of the Selection Panel by each member of this Commission would create a presumptive situation of selecting the shortlist of candidates for Commissioner of the Information and Privacy Agency based on the political background of the candidates and not based on their professional background.

Therefore, taking into account the sound democratic principles of decision-making and analogous parliamentary procedures, we call for the withdrawal of this decision, so that in the Selection Panel of candidates for the position of Commissioner are not all members of the Committee on Security and Defense , but in the Panel should be selected only one member for each political entity / parliamentary group represented in the Commission.