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.

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.