In 2020, the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Law on Archival Materials and Services (“the Law“), whose application shall start on February 2, 2021.

This field was previously regulated by the already anachronous Law on Cultural Property from 1994 and the Law on Archival Materials of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1998, which cease to be valid on the day the Law starts to apply.

The legislator justified the adoption of the new law by the improvement of working conditions for the archives so as to enable them to collect archival materials from their fields of competence, to classify and process, microfilm and digitize them, to preserve and restore damaged materials, as well as by clear definition of obligations of archive founders and stricter penalty policy that will contribute to the protection and preservation of archival materials.

Archival materials, as documentary materials to be permanently stored, have been defined as a selected original or, in the absence of original, any reproduced form of document or recording generated during work and activities, among other of companies, entrepreneurs and persons performing registered activity, no matter when and where such documents and recordings have been made and whether they are in institutions for protection of cultural property or outside them and regardless of the form and carrier they are stored in.

The new law stipulates new obligations for legal entities and entrepreneurs that refer both to internal organisation of activities relating to archival materials and to record-keeping and reporting on archival materials handling.

Obligations of creators and holders of archival materials and documentary materials

Creators and holders of archival and documentary materials in terms of the Law shall mean any legal or natural person whose activity generates archival materials and which are holders of rights to the archival materials. Such persons shall be obliged to diligently keep archival and documentary materials in a proper and safe state and in the form they were generated in.

Among other obligations stipulated in Article 9 of the Law, the entities subject to the Law shall:

• Ensure appropriate premises and equipment for storage and protection of archival and documentary materials,
• Keep book of archives in a prescribed form,
• Appoint responsible professional for protection and handling of archival and documentary materials,
• Record, label, classify, date and archive the archival and documentary materials,
• Supply to the relevant archive a copy of book of archives no later than April 30 of the current year, for documentary materials generated in the preceding year,
• Notify relevant public archives on all changes that are of significance for the archival materials no later than 30 days after the day of their generation.

Also, creators and holders that are legal entities shall adopt:

1) a general act on the manner of recording, classifying, archiving and keeping archival and documentary materials;

2) a list of categories of archival and documentary materials with retention periods;

3) a general act on the manner of recording, protecting and using electronic documents.

Penalties for legal entities

The Law prescribes fines for failure to respect the prescribed obligations ranging from RSD 50,000 to 2,000,000 and RSD 5,000 to 150,000 for responsible person in a legal entity.

Although it also stipulates obligations for entrepreneurs and natural persons performing registered activities, interestingly enough the Law does not contain any penalty provisions referring to this category of entities.

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