Bureaucratic Legal Consciousness: Perception of the Right to Access to Information of Public Importance in Public Authorities in Serbia

Anja Bezbradica

doi:10.47152/ziksi2023031

Authors

Anja Bezbradica Institute of Comparative Law, Belgrade, Serbia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47152/ziksi2023031

Keywords:

legal consciousness, legal consciousness of public officials, right to information, bureaucracy, perception of the right to information, Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance, legal narratives

Abstract

The article analyzes the legal consciousness of public officials who decide on the right to access information of public importance in authorities of the Republic of Serbia (authorized persons). The empirical small-scale study presented here aims to determine the characteristics of authorized persons’ consciousness concerning these rights. Therefore, a qualitative research design was chosen. Through in-depth semi-structured interviews with ten authorized persons from various public authorities, an attempt was made to answer the question: What are the public officials’ subjective perceptions of the right to information? Since the presented research does not belong to the legal effectiveness studies, these subjective perceptions were not compared with the statutory or doctrinal definition of the right to information. The aim was to examine whether there is a single, unique “bureaucratic narrative” or whether public officials differ in how they perceive this right. Based on the data obtained from the interviews, we established four legal narratives about the right to information.

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