With four votes in favor and one against, members of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption annulled the public competition for the selection of the director.
However, with five positive votes, they agreed to re-announce the competition, which this time will be published on the Employment Agency's website.
The President of the ASK Council, Pavle Ćupić, recalled that the repeated competition for the selection of directors was announced on December 10th last year, and the deadline for applying for candidates expired on the last day of that month.
He noted that only one candidate, the current acting director Dušan Drakić, applied for the position, adding that "the Council has an obligation to consider the broader context."
Ćupić said that the public advertisement was not published on the Employment Agency's website, and that this was the key reason why the competition was canceled.
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He said that ASK must be an example of maximum legal certainty and transparency.
He proposed that the competition be canceled, in order to eliminate any risk of challenging the work of the Agency.
"The Director of the Agency should be elected in a dispute that is clear... This approach is responsible and in the best interest of this institution," he said.
Member Slavica Mirković said she doesn't like it when "hindsight is used."
She said that the public interest is greater in continuing the selection of the director than in annulling the competition due to its failure to be published on the Employment Agency's website. She said that she would not support the annulment of the competition.
Aleksandra Vukašinović, also a member of the Council, said that in the previous procedure, the public competition was not announced at the Institute.
She emphasized that they have a legal obligation that they "have not complied with at this time."
She invited the professional public, who met the criteria, to apply for the competition, so that they would have the opportunity to select candidates based on competition.
ASK Council member Mladen Tomović also believes that the public competition should be canceled. He said that "technically, they are wasting very little time," and that a new competition should be announced as soon as possible.
Ćupić congratulated them on Journalists' Day and thanked them for being "partners of the Agency".
"I expect that we will continue to have intensive cooperation," he concluded.
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