During the public discussion on the Draft Law on Social Cards initiated by the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veteran and Social Issues, the A 11 Initiative and the Share Foundation formulated and submitted comments to the draft law.
Considering the importance of this law for the announced comprehensive reform of the social protection system in the Republic of Serbia, we believe that it is necessary to regulate this area in more detail in order to regulate more precisely certain issues of importance for the introduction of the social card system.
Comments related to the improvement of the draft law primarily relate to the specification of certain legal institutes referred to in the Draft Law on Social Cards as well as to the respect for the principle of unity of legal order referred to in Article 194 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia.
Moreover, as one of the key contentious areas in the Draft Law on Social Cards, the A 11 Initiative and the Share Foundation highlighted its inconsistency with the provisions of the Law on Personal Data Protection and the lack of assessment of the impact of the envisaged data processing actions to the personal data protection. This assessment is obligatory because of the nature, extent, circumstances and purpose of the processing, and the existence of a potential risk to the rights and freedoms of people whose personal data are processed in the social card system.
Finally, the analysis of the Draft Law on Social Cards showed that it does not clearly regulate how the establishment of a social card system in the manner envisaged in the existing Draft improves the work of the bodies responsible for providing social card services. As a result, it is not clear enough what is the additional contribution of this regulation to already existing obligations of state authorities stemming from other laws governing e-government.
Republic of Serbia has already used considerable financial resources under the World Bank loan for the implementation of the DILS project for the establishment of a centralized information management system in social protection institutions, which envisaged the development and supply of infrastructure and software to all 265 centers for social work as well as training for 600 employees in the centers for social work, but it remained inoperative; therefore it raises the question of the usefulness of introducing a system of social cards prior to making operational the system already in place.
Comments to the Draft Law on Social Cards submitted to the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veteran and Social Issues can be downloaded HERE.