The Executive Director of AIP Gergana Jouleva and the Head of AIP Legal Team Alexander Kashumov were invited to lecture in two one-day trainings for public officials from the administration of the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Justice

 

27 officials from the legal departments of the Ministry of Interior and its structures took part in a training held on June 9, 2016 in Sofia. The Ministry of Justice held the trining for 40 of its officials on June 16, 2016 in the city of Blagoevrgad. 

 

The AIP experts presented the Access to Public Information Act with a focus on the obligations introduced with the amendments effective as of January 12, 2016 - basic principles; access to information requests procedures; case law; obligations for proactive publication of information online; exemptions from the access to public information and the harm test and the balance of interests when decisions are made for information disclosure or witholding. 

 

Since the beginning of 2016, the AIP experts were lecturers in several trainings to present the obligations, the procedures, and the accumulated implementation practices under the APIA - at the invitation of the Public Financial Inspection Agency (on March 23), RAABE Bulgaria Ltd for school and kindergarten principals (on January 21), and the State Fund Agriculture (on April 7).

 

An AIP team has also travelled in the country to hold seminars and workshops within the Access to Information Days in the cities of Smolyan (May 13), Stara Zagora (May 18), Yambol (June 14) and Sliven (June 15). The Access to Information Days are being held within the project Civil Center for Support of Transparency in Public Life, supported with a grant by the America for Bulgaria Foundation.