New Instructions For Application of the Law on Archival Materials and Services – Submission of the Archive Book Transcript Not Required Before 2022

Submission of the Archive Book Transcript Not Required Before 2022

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The new Law on Archival Materials and Services („Law“), which came into force on February 2, 2021, provided obligations for creators and holders of archival material and documentary material.

In practice, a large number of questions were raised regarding the application of the Law, especially with regard to the drafting of prescribed normative acts and the submission of transcripts of the archive book to the competent public archive.

After the Historical Archive of Belgrade first published a statement on its website that the deadline for submitting transcripts of the archive book is extended until the end of 2021, and after a few weeks withdrew it from the website, before the expiration of the statutory deadline for fulfilling this obligation, the Ministry of Culture and Information (“Ministry”) has issued an opinion on the application of the Law which has finally resolved the doubts regarding the deadlines.

Namely, in the official opinion no. 011-00-71/2021-02 dated 29 April 2021 the Ministry stated that the obligation to submit a transcript of the archive book to the competent archive for companies arises in 2022. In other words, a transcript of the archive book for documentary material created by the end of 2021 must be submitted by 30 April 2022. In 2021 companies have no obligation to submit transcripts of the archive book.

In another official opinion no. 011-00-32/ 021-07 dated 1 April 2021 the Ministry specified that the obligation to submit a transcript of the archive book can be performed even before the competent archive approves the list of categories of archival material and documentary material with retention periods. In that way, it was confirmed that the consent of the competent public archive to the List of categories is not a condition for keeping the archive book, i.e. submitting its transcript to the competent archive.

In this opinion, the Ministry also confirmed that creators and holders of archival material may ask the competent public archive for professional assistance with respect the application of the Law.

This article is to be considered as exclusively informative, with no intention to provide legal advice. If you should need additional information, please contact us directly.

By Natalija Djukic, Associate, PR Legal