Access to Information Programme Launched a Campaign on New Standards in Access to Information. In order to enhance the execution of the right of access to information in Bulgaria in line with 2008 amendments to the Access to Public Information Act and push for the ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents, Access to Information Programme (AIP) initiated Public Awareness Campaign on New Standards in the Access to Information Area. The campaign is supported by a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Financial Mechanism.
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| Litigation on access to information in Bulgaria 2009 – trends and conclusions. During 2009 a large number of lawsuits for access to information were brought with the AIP legal support. As in previous years some court battles have been successful, others have been lost. Some, such as the story related to the contract between the Bulgarian administration and Microsoft have been again postponed. The rich case law allows us to draw some conclusions and trends in the court practice. |
| Dubious amendments to the Electronic Communications Act passed first reading in the Bulgarian Parliament. Despite the broad public and media campaign against certain proposed amendments to the Electronic Communications Act, they passed first reading in the parliament on December 22, 2009. Despite the public consultation initiated by the Ministry of Interior, the amendments intend to introduce direct access of the MoI to citizens’ telecommunication data. AIP has led been leading the campaign against uncontrolled access to the telecommunication data for a second successive year. |
| On October 7, 2009 AIP submitted an Opinion Statement to the Parliamentary Internal Security and Public Order Committee with regard to proposed amendments to the Ministry of Interior Act. The draft law aims to introduce amendments to the Protection of Classified Information Act (PCIA), precisely to Appendix 1 to Art. 25 which comprises a List of Categories of Information Subject to Classification as State Secret. This initiative opens an opportunity for a revision of the List in Appendix 1 to Art. 25 of the PCIA and reducing the number and the scope of the categories of information subject to classification as state secret. AIP stated the concern that some categories provided by the law constitute an outdated understanding for secrecy which contradicts the principles of transparency, accountability and unrestricted access to public information. AIP also sent the Statement to the Ministry of Interior. |
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The seventh annual Right to Know Day Awards Ceremony in Bulgaria was held on September 28, 2009 at 10 a.m. in the National Press Center of the Bulgarian News Agency in Sofia. Positive awards for achievements and negative awards for "mischievements" in the FOI area were given in seven categories – five positive and two negative.
Pictures from the 2009 Right to Know Day Awards Ceremony. |
| A thirty-minute documentary Right to Know Day was produced by a team of ProMedia - Broadcasting Training Center Foundation within the framework of the project Local Media and Freedom of Information in Bulgaria implemented by The Management&Media Academy/Free Voice and AIP with the financial support of the MATRA Programme of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The movie is in Bulgarian but is accessible with subtitles in English as well. |
| AIP published the fourth edition of the handbook for citizens How to Get Access to Information? The text of the handbook is in line with the last amendments to the Bulgarian Access to Public Information Act from December 2008. The handbook is available online in Bulgarian: http://www.aip-bg.org/pdf/handbook2009.pdf. |
On May 8, 2009, AIP presented its Annual Report Access to Information in Bulgaria 2008 at a press conference held in the Bulgarian News Agency.
The Report contains recommendations for improving the ATI practices within the Bulgarian public institutions; detailed analysis of the 2008 changes in ATI legislation and practices with a special emphasis on the the 2008 amendments to the Access to Public Information Act; results from a survey on whether and how the institutions handle electronic requests; characteristics of the cases that AIP received for legal help during the year; and an overview of the most interesting developments in the ATI court practices in 2008.
The full text of the report in English can be found here. |
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Access to Information Litigation in Bulgaria 2005-2008: Selected Cases, volume 4 is available in English. The book was published in 2008. It contains analytical part, which reviews the main problems related to the court practice with regard to the Access to Public Information Act during the last years. The analysis encompasses the development of both cases related to the exercise of the right of access to public information and to the implementation of the exemptions from the right of access to information. Summaries and twenty-seven decisions on 14 court cases in which AIP legal team has provided legal help, including court representation, were included as appendices to the book. |
Access to Information Programme held a conference “Access to Information Litigation in Bulgaria.” The conference took place on March 27, 2009
in Hotel Central Forum Central, Sofia, Bulgaria. Among the 90 participants were lawyers, judges from administrative courts, representatives of NGOs, media, activists.
You can see the agenda here. Pictures from the conference can be viewed here. |
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2009 Big Brother Awards Ceremony in Bulgaria
On January 28, 2009, Access to Information Programme and Internet Society Bulgaria organized the Big Brother Awards ceremony. It was held at the National Presscenter of the Bulgarian News Agency. The jury selected an institution and a company that have extensively violated the right to privacy and the protection of personal data for the last year in Bulgaria. These were the Ministry of Interior and the electricity syply company CEZ Distrubution Bulgaria JSC. |
The Bulgarian Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) repealed a provision of the Data Retention in the Internet Regulation. With a decision as of December 11, 2008 a five-member panel of the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) repealed a provision of the Bulgarian Regulation # 40 transposing the Data Retention Directive (2006/24/EC). The Regulation was issued by the State Agency on Information Technologies and Communication (SAITC) and the Ministry of Interior (MoI) and promulgated in the State Gazette on January 29, 2008. AIP challenged the Regulation submitting a complaint to the SAC on March 19, 2008 arguing that its adoption is in violation of the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the European Union legislation. More information...
Information about the litigation can be found here. |
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On December 5, 2008, key amendments to the Bulgarian Access to Public Information Act were promulgated. The amendments reflect necessary changes which AIP has formulated and recommended in 2007 and 2008 in its annual reports Access to Information in Bulgaria. They were introduced through two draft laws that according to the rules for the work of the National Assembly were combined before the parliamentarian vote. The amendments introduce extended scope of obliged bodies by including the regional offices of the central authorities; and bodies financed under EU programs and funds; the obligation for the provision of partial access to information; the obligation for proactive publication of information online; and the public interest test. More information... |
În 27 November 2008,the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted the Convention on Access to Official Documents.
Tha drafting process started in January 2006 and ended in February 2008 and was accompaned by a widespread campaign by the three observing organizations: Access Info Europe, Article 19 and Open Society Justice Initiative. Their recommendations that the first binding treaty on access to information shall establish higher standards guaranteeing the full exercise of that right were supported by more than 250 civil society groups from all over the world, 12 Information Commissioners, by the OSCE’s Representative on Freedom of the Media, by the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee on the Media and New Communication Services, and by the Parlamentary Assembly (Opinion No. 270 2008). However, they were not taken into consideration.
Now they recommend the establishment of a monitoring body to oversee the Convention and propose amendments
which could strengthen the treaty in the future.
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| Representative public opinion poll on public attitudes regarding the right of access to information was performed by Market LINKS at the demand of AIP and within the framework of the project "Support to Access to Information Programme as a Freedom of Information Civic Resource Center financed by the Trust for Civil Society in CEE. The public opinion poll was carried out in September 2008 among adult Bulgarian population, as well as among Bulgarian journalists from electronic and printed media. You can read the summary of the results (87 Kb) and also see the main results (152 Kb ). |
| Documentary Media and Access to Information - Five Investigative Reporter Stories was produced by a team of ProMedia - Broadcasting Training Center Foundation within the framework of the project Local Media and Freedom of Information in Bulgaria implemented by The Management&Media Academy/Free Voice and AIP with the financial support of the MATRA Programme of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The movie is accessible with subtitles in English and in Russian. |
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On September 28, AIP held the sixth annual Right to Know Day Awards Ceremony in BulgariaMore than 100 people attended. Special guests were Mr. Nikolay Vasilev, Minister of State Administration and Administrative Reform, Ms. Vera Illes, Programme Manager at The Management & Media Academy/Free Voice. Awards were given in seven categories - five positive and two negative. |
| On 11 September the journalist Hristo Hristov from Dnevnik newspaper presented his new book "The Dual Life of Agent Piccadilly." The book discloses unknown facts about the involvement of the Bulgarian communist secret services in the assassination of the BBC journalist Georgy Markov in London in 1978. The documents underlying the book were obtained through the Access to Public information Act and with the legal assistance of AIP. Information about the investigation and other books of Hristo Hristov. |
