On April 15th 2015, the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia on the Third Sitting of the First Regular Session, adopted the Law on Inspection (“Official Gazette of the RS“, No. 36/2015, hereinafter referred to as the “Law”) which came into force on April 29th 2015, and is applicable in 12 months upon entring into force, i.e. as of April 30th 2016, except for the provisions governing non-registered entities and the treatment of non-registered entities, which have been applicable as of July 30th 2015, andthe provisions governing the inspection procedure in terms of scope of activities or actions of the supervised entity that is within the scope of other inspection (unless it is necessary to take urgent measures prescribed by the law) which became applicable as of September 30th 2015.
The inspection procedure is initiated and conducted ex officio or upon request of the supervised entity, as well as upon the request of other person recognized by a special law as a party in the proceeding.
Pursuant to the provisions of Article 6 of the Law, there are three types of inspection, i.e. regular, controling and complementary, while based on the form the inspection supervision is carried out, there are office and field inspections.
The inspector is obliged to notify the supervised entity, in writing, about the forthcoming inspection supervision, as a rule, no later than three working days before the inspection, with certain exceptions. The main novelty in the Law are inspector’ preventive actions. If, during an official advisory visit, the inspector determins omissions, defects or irregularities in the activities and actions of the supervised entity, the inspector submitts a letter to the entity, containing recommendations on how to rectify the omission. As a rule, if the omission is corrected, the inspector does not impose measures to the supervised entity, respectively does not submit the request for the initiation of misdemeanor proceeding, i.e. does not issue a misdemeanor order, although the omission, deficiency or the irregularity is considered to be a misdemeanor in accordance with the law or other regulations.
The inspector is obliged to make checklists for its scope of inspection (which are to be used in regular inspection procedures), with an obligation to take such controls and actions contained in the checklist. The content of the checklists and facts recognized in it must be authenticated by the signature of the inspector and the supervised entity.
In case the inspector can not determine who the supervised entity is (or the authorized person of the supervised entity), the inspector shall leave a notice at the inspection location inviting the supervised entity to be present during the supervision at the specific date and time. If the unknown entity does not respond to this call, the inspection is carried out in the presence of an official or other person present at that location.
This Law also regulates the inspection procedure in respect to the non-registered entity, whom the inspector can prohibit from performing its activities and order to register as soon as possible.
This Law regulates the collection of data relevant for inspection over a specific supervised entity, so that at the same time the inspector gets all the necessary information on the supervised entity and the object of the supervision, and that the administrative burden on supervised entities is reduced. The inspector shall take care that the exercise of its powers does not interfere with the regular work process, i.e. the scope of activities and performance of activities of the supervised entity.
In addition, the Law prescribes that every person has the right to file a complaint against the officers authorized to perform the inspection if he/she considers that the officer’s illegal or improper actions violated his/hers rights.