procedure of their operation, competent bodies in this reporting period, too, took necessary measures from their scope of competence with the aim of more efficient and timely activities and thus removed the omissions in operation. However, due to inaccurate and incomplete legal regulation which refers to the procedure of submission of decisions by competent services for real estate cadaster, in the reporting period it was noticed that it is significantly aggravated for the citizens to exercise their right to further legal protection. The problem which citizens face refers to taking of acts whose submission is not performed via e-counters but via registered mail. Therefore, the Protector of Citizens upon his own initiative initiated the oversight procedure of the operation of the Republic Geodetic Authority. It was indicated to the body that the problems which citizens encounter during taking of acts whose submission is not performed via users of e-counter was the consequence of the failure to pass the bylaw, which, pursuant to the Law on the Procedure of Entry into Real Estate and Power Cadaster, should regulate more closely the manner of the submission of acts which is done via registered mail. In contacts with the Protector of Citizens, citizens indicate also to the uneven practice and inconsistent application of the provisions of the Law on General Administrative Procedure178 at services for the real estate cadaster and lack of observance of the citizen rights to equal legal protection and legal remedy, especially with regards to acting upon requests for the correction of errors in the maintenance of the real estate cadaster, to which was also indicated by the Protector of Citizens in the previous reporting period.179 Taking into account occasional perennial duration of processes before services for the real estate cadaster, to which citizens indicated in their complaints, the Protector of Citizens initiated by taking valid regulations into consideration and will continue in the following period, the analysis of the regular application of Article 44 of the Law on the Procedure of Entry into Real Estate and Power Cadaster180 in the section which refers to repeated actions of the second-instance body upon the complaint in the same administrative case. Namely, the stated article of the Law prescribes that the Republic Geodetic Authority may return the case to the service for the real estate cadaster to the repeated process and deciding only once, regardless of the reasons or omissions in the first-instance process, which most often does not occur in practice, which is why it is necessary to have a comprehensive perspective of the harmonization of activities among all services for the real estate cadaster. Environmental protection The Protector of Citizens notices that in this reporting period as well the topic of the environmental protection was in focus and the public shows justified concern mostly due to the occurrence of excessive air pollution in major cities of the Republic of Serbia. The number of complaints, nevertheless, was not increased, so the Protector of Citizens initiated procedures upon his own initiative with regards to new wildfires at the landfill Vinča, the pollution of Lupnjača river and Zapadna Morava in Čačak as well as the pollution of the Veliki bački channel. These procedures are in progress. During 2019 the Ministry of Environmental Protection issued the public competition for granting of funds of the Green Fund of the Republic of Serbia, especially when it comes to “Official Gazette of RS“, no. 18/16 and 95/19 – authentic interpretation. Available at: https://www.ombudsman.rs/index.php/izvestaji/godisnji-izvestaji/6062-2018. 180 “Official Gazette of RS“, no. 41/18, 95/18, 31/19. 178 179 - 95 -