By Decision[1] as of 25 May 2015, the SAC upheld the reapeling of the refusal of the Chief Secretary of the Ministry of Transport, Information Technologies and Communications (MTITC) to provide access to the contract, its annexes and implementation reports signed with the “BDZ – Passenger Services” EOOD (the national railway transport company) for the provision of the public service “rail transport of passenger.”
The information was requested by the Association “Friends of Railway Transport” in 2003.
The refusal was grounded in the argument that the requested information was not public under the meaning of the APIA and was not due to that law, but as the contract was signed after a public procurement tender, the Public Procurements Act applied. According to the PPA, the contractors sent the information to the Public Procurements Register which was online.
The SAC upheld the conclusion of the first instance Administrative Court Sofia – City that the requested information was public. The information about signed contracts by the executive bodies and the level of their implementation is undoubtedly information which serves to form public opinion on the work of the institutions. The decision is final.