Legal Opinions » 2013

On August 7, 2013, Access to Information Programme submitted its Statement on a Draft Partnership Agreement of the Republic of Bulgaria, outlining the help of EU structural and investment funds for the period 2014-2020. AIP recommendations focus on proposed texts within the horizontal Strategic Priority 4: Good Governance and Access to Quality Public Services. Some of the main recommendations are:

• to establish an independent body of power (Information Commissioner);
• to establish separate specialized departments/officials to be responsible for the implementation of the obligations for the provision of access to information and the proactive and timely publication of information;
• unification of the procedure for accepting and responding to electronic access to information requests;
• the heads of administrative structures to pay special attention to the implementation of the obligations under Art. 26, Para. 2 of the Law on Normative Acts with regard to the online publication of all drafts of normative acts, together with the respective grounds and motives, the date of the publication and the deadline for public consultation on the drafts, as well as the results from the public consultations and the submitted opinions and statements. 

AIP also proposes that amendment of the Art. 26 of the Law on Normative Acts so that it would provide for:

• one month instead of 14 days for public consultation on draft normative acts;
• obligation for publication of the statements presented during the deliberation process, as well as the statements presented by interested persons and groups;
• obligation for a grounded response to filed proposals which are not to be adopted and its online publication.