Information about the official leaves and official trips of the Chairperson of the Sofia Municipal Council

Ivan Petrov vs. the Sofia Municipal Council

First Instance Court  - administrative case No. 4953/2007, Administrative Court – Sofia City, 2nd Division, 27th Panel
Second Instance Court – administrative case No. 5863/2008, Supreme Administrative Court, Third Division

Request:
With a written request under the Access to Public Information Act as of September 2007 addressed to the Chairperson of the Sofia Municipal Council (SMC), the citizen Ivan Petrov demanded access to the following information:

• all official leaves made by the Chairperson of the SMC during the current term of the SMC (from 2003 till August 2007) – by date and duration;
• all official trips in the country and abroad made by the Chairperson of the SMC during the current term of the SMC (from 2003 till August 2007) – by date, places of visit, purpose of visit, duration and amount of expenses made.

Refusal:
No response to the submitted request was received within the legally prescribed 14-days period.

Complaint:
The silent refusal of the Chairperson of the SMC was appealed before the Administrative Court – Sofa City. Besides the arguments about the unlawfulness of the silent refusal, the complaint contained arguments on the merit of the case. It was argued that the requested information may not be defined as personal data under the meaning of the provision of Art. 2 of the Personal Data Protection Act, as it did not relate to a natural person but to the exercise of official functions by the chairperson of the municipal council. The content of the request which aimed completely at the activity of a body of local self-government within the municipality classified the information as administrative public information as under the provision of Art. 11 of the APIA. Precisely with such kind of judgments, panels of the SAC had repealed decisions of the Regional Court of Razgrad on identical cases for access to information about the per diem expenses of a mayor and a deputy mayor of the municipality (Decision No. 3110/23.03.2006, SAC, Fifth Division, adm. case No.8452/2005 and Decision No. 9097/21.09.2006, SAC, Fifth Division, adm. case No. 5319/2006). The conclusions reached by another panel of the SAC followed the same direction with regard to a case for access to information about the per diem expenses of the prime minister and the ministers. In that latter case, the court panel assumed it was undoubtful that the information about the per diem expenses of the prime minister and the ministers constituted administrative public information as under the provision of Art. 11 of the APIA and should be provided to the requestor (Decision No. 6027/28.06.2005, SAC, Fifth Division, adm. case No. 10635/2004).

Developments in the Court of First Instance:
The case was heard in an open court session and scheduled for judgment.

Court Decision:
With a Decision as of February 18, 2008, the ACSC repealed the silent refusal of the Chairperson of the SMC and returned the request back to the latter for reconsideration. In its judgment, the court pointed out that the Chairperson of the SMC was obliged to issue a decision on the request for access to information. The silent refusal was unacceptable under the APIA. Thus, on the base of that ground only, the refusal was subject to repeal.

Court Appeal:
The Decision of the ACSC was appealed before the SAC by the Chairperson of the SMC. The appeal stated that in the current case the requestor had demanded access to documents in a written form. Based on that ground solely the silent refusal had been lawful since the administrative body was not obliged by law to provide the information as it was formulated in the request.

Developments in the Court of Second Instance:
The case was heard in an open court session in February 2009 and was scheduled for judgment.

Court Decision:
With a Decision No. 3532 as of March 17, 2009, a panel of the SAC, Third Division, upheld the decision of the ACSC. Besides confirming the judgment of the previous court instance, the justices assumed that the requested information should be defined as administrative public information under the meaning of the provision of Art. 11 of the APIA. Consequently, access to that information was free, except in the cases when there was a ground for refusal stipulated by the APIA. However, the requested information did not fall in the legally prescribed exceptions.

The court decision is final.

Executing the court decisions, the Chairperson of the SMC responded to Ivan Petrov.
Access to information about the holidays was not granted on the ground that it did not constitute public information under the meaning of Art. 2, Para. 1 of the APIA. In terms of the official trips, the response only stated that no orders for sending the Chairperson of the municipal council to official trips were issued. The ACSC repealed that explicit refusal with a decision as of May 11, 2010. The court delivered instructions to the Chairperson of the SMC on how to interpret and apply the APIA.