Good Practices

Ever since the outset of its activities the AIP team has been offering legal assistance free of charge to individuals and journalists seeking information from government authorities and structures. Our task was much more difficult prior to the adoption of APIA because we had to general legal framework covering the right of citizens to be granted access to information. Therefore individual citizens received the information they requested from government authorities only in some rare cases.

On December 5, 2008 key amendments to the Bulgarian Access to Public Information Act were promulgated.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 principle of overriding public interest.

Even before the introduction of the principle of overriding public interest with the amendments promulgated at the end of 2008, several administrative structures have already applied that principle in practice.

For instance, the administration of the Ministry of State Administration and Administrative Reform published on their Internet site the declarations submitted by its servants under the requirement of Art. 12 of the Act on Prevention and Exposure of Conflict of Interests. The “Architecture and Urban Development” Directorate at the Sofia Municipality published online a register of all construction permits issued by the directorate.

Although there is no explicit obligation for the publication of such information, the above mentioned institutions considered that the public interest requires that citizens receive this information.

Even prior to the adoption of APIA, a citizen came to the AIP office with his request to obtain all the information collected in connection with the contest for a national coat of arms of Bulgaria. The contest was held by the Ministry of Culture and the results were debated at the National Assembly.

Prior to the adoption of APIA, the citizen succeeded in obtaining the verbatim reports from the parliamentary sessions where the bill was discussed. The National Assembly provided the information upon receiving an official letter with the request.

The remaining information, however, such as designs for the contest, decisions of the contest committee, the final conclusion, etc., was kept at the Ministry of Culture. The Ministry refused to provide the requested information prior to the adoption of APIA.
On the effective date of APIA, that citizen served an application in writing for obtaining information, which had been prepared by the AIP team. The whole information was provided seven days after the date of the application, i.e. seven days before the expiration of the statutory time limits.

Journalists from a regional newspaper were making their journalist research into the privatisation deal concerning an enterprise in their city. All their efforts to learn something more about the terms and conditions of the privatisation agreement were in vain. They could not manage to talk either to the buyers or to the officials in charge of the privatisation deal. It was not until they served an application in writing to the Privatisation Agency for obtaining access to the whole available information about the privatisation deal that the journalists succeeded in obtaining the documents they sought.