The Law on Archival Material and Archival Activity ("the Law") has established certain obligations for all creators and holders of archival material and documentary material, along with deadlines by which everyone must align their business with its provisions. Without delving into details, we can say that the obligations outlined in this Law, which we will present in the text, apply to all economic entities (legal, not physical persons), and by now, you should have already taken steps to comply with them. Although the Law, along with accompanying bylaws, has set deadlines for when this had to be done, it is not yet time to panic, as various circumstances have allowed for continued compliance without consequences.
I. What are the deadlines, and have I missed them?
In addition to the general obligations regarding the handling of archival material, which are not specifically tied to prescribed deadlines, and which we will mention in the second part of the text, certain obligations from the Law are related to specific time frames in which they must be undertaken.
The first of these obligations is submitting a transcript of the Archive Book to the relevant archive, no later than April 30 of the current year, for the previous year. The competent archive is determined based on the company's headquarters. If the transcript of the Archive book is not submitted to the competent authority within the prescribed deadline, the Law provides for misdemeanor liability and high fines. However, due to the enactment of this Law and the expiration of the deadline for taking this action, archives have suddenly faced a massive influx of documents for which they lack the technical capacity, resulting in the extension of these deadlines.
In some archives, technical issues have been managed, and the deadline for submitting a transcript of the Archive Book for the previous year was April 30, 2023, meaning that if you haven't complied with this obligation yet, it should be done as soon as possible. On the other hand, some archives, such as the largest archive in our country, the Historical Archive of Belgrade, still face delays due to the volume of received documents, affecting the extension of deadlines for fulfilling this obligation.
Specifically, at the time of writing this article, there is an announcement on the website of the Historical Archive of Belgrade stating that the archive is not able to accept new documentation "until further notice" and that no punitive measures will be implemented until conditions for acceptance are established. Therefore, if your legal entity is based in Belgrade, it means that you have not yet missed the deadline for submitting the transcript of the Archive Book. This does not mean you can neglect this obligation - on the contrary, the archive's website also indicates an expected establishment of the possibility for electronic submission of these documents, meaning that now is the right time to take advantage of this situation and prepare all documentation in accordance with the Law so that when this system is established, you will be ready to fulfill your legal obligations and avoid the risk of legal liability.
Regarding other archives - responsible for other territories, it is advisable to first check the instructions on the website of the archive of interest and see how to fulfill this obligation if you haven't done so already.
The second obligation related to deadlines is obtaining consent for the List of Categories from the competent archive. Although the Law does not prescribe a specific deadline for this action, the nature of the List of Categories implies that it is a document that serves as a starting point for other documents envisaged by the Law. This document is usually submitted to the competent archive together with the initial submission of the transcript of the Archive Book. In this regard, everything mentioned about submitting the transcript of the Archive Book applies to submitting the List of Categories for approval.
At the end, the obligation related to a specific deadline involves notifying the competent archive within 30 days of company's establishment, or any 'changes in status and organization (changes in status, name, changes in organization, address, as well as cessation of activities).' The information about the suspension of receiving documentation applies only to the List of Categories and the transcript of the Archive Book, while the archive has not commented on this obligation.
II. What are my obligations according to the Law?
In addition to the mentioned obligations, which we highlighted above as they are related to strict deadlines, all creators and holders of archival material and documentary material, except for individuals, have a certain number of obligations according to the Law, which we will briefly present below. It should be noted that non-compliance with these obligations entails misdemeanor liability and fines – ranging from 50,000 to 2,000,000 RSD. Some of the most important obligations include:
a. Safeguarding, in an organized and secure condition, archival material and documentary material;
b. Providing suitable space and equipment for the storage and protection of archival material and documentary material;
c. Appointing a responsible person for the protection of archival material and documentary material and handling archival material and documentary material;
d. Registering, marking, classifying, dating, and archiving archival material and documentary material;
e. Submitting archival material to the competent archive under the conditions and within the deadlines stipulated by this law;
f. Ensuring the permanent storage of archival material in electronic form, its maintenance, migration, or transfer to new media in prescribed formats before submitting it in electronic form to the relevant public archive. Regarding this obligation, important notes can be found in Section III of this article.
g. Keeping the Archive Book in the prescribed form. The form is prescribed by the minister, and the link to the Regulation with the form can be found at the end of this article.
h. Submitting a transcript of the Archive Book to the competent archive no later than April 30 of the current year for documentary material created in the previous year – we wrote about this obligation above.
i. Obtaining the opinion of the competent archive before taking measures related to archival material and documentary material;
j. Selecting archival material and segregating it for destruction of worthless documentary material whose retention period has expired;
k. Allowing the authorized person of the competent public archive to supervise the registration, classification, selection, archiving, storage, expert maintenance, and protection of archival material, or the selection from documentary material, and acting in accordance with the measures and deadlines specified by the competent archive's resolution;
l. Informing the competent public archive of all changes significant for archival material within 30 days of their occurrence;
m. Notifying the competent archive of its establishment, as well as any changes in status and organization, within 30 days;
n. Segregating for destruction documentary material whose retention period has expired, after selecting archival material;
o. Submitting archival material for safekeeping to the competent public archive after 30 years from its creation date, in accordance with the rules of the Law;
p. Adopting general acts regarding archival material – detailed in Section IV of this article.
III. Special obligations of creators and holders of archival material and documentary material in electronic form
The Law imposes specific obligations for documentary material in electronic form. Broadly speaking, these obligations consist of the requirement to implement special procedures related to document management, as well as the use of an information system that ensures the protection, authenticity, credibility, integrity, and usability of electronic documents.
The Law has envisaged the adoption of regulations that will specify these obligations. One such document has been adopted – the Regulation on unified technical and technological requirements and procedures for the storage and protection of archival material and documentary material in electronic form ("Regulation"). As the application of the Regulation begins on January 1, 2024, it is essential to familiarize yourself with its provisions, in order to align your business with them on time. Therefore, we will analyze in more detail the obligations related to the storage of documents in electronic form and the solutions contained in the Regulation in a separate article.
IV. Mandatory general acts you must adopt
In addition to obligations of a technical nature, the Law also prescribes the obligation to adopt general acts. In this regard, the acts you must enact (adopt) are the following:
List of Categories of archival material and documentary material with retention periods (mentioned in the first section of the article);
General act on the method of registration, classification, archiving, and storage of archival material and documentary material;
General act on the method of registration, protection, and use of electronic documents.
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If you have additional questions regarding this topic or need assistance with aligning your business with the law or drafting general acts, feel free to contact us at office@r-legal.net.
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Note: The information provided in this article is solely for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice.
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