Information newsletter
Issue 5(17), May 2005

News
Compiled by Diana Bancheva, AIP

The Cabinet still argues over the publicity of the ministers’ per Diems
The Council of Ministers appealed the decision of the Sofia City Court, obliging them to disclose information about the expenditures made by ministers while traveling abroad. The request had been filed by a 24 Hours journalist. The Sofia City judges established that information about all expenditures made by each minister is clearly public and there are no reasons why it should be kept secret. Clearly disagreeing with the first instance court decision, the Cabinet submitted an appeal before the Supreme Administrative Court. A final decision of the Supreme Court is expected soon.

Will national security be seriously harmed…
if Ivan Yonchev, a colonel from the reserve, is granted access to his personal file at the Ministry of Interior(MI)? This was the complicated question posed to the Minister of Interior by the Supreme Court.
Mr. Ivan Yonchev had appealed a refusal of the minister to disclose information about the colonel collected by the ministry. The refusal was grounded by the 1996 unpublished Guidelines, establishing that the personal files of the ministry officials are highly confidential. The Supreme Court postponed the lawsuit with one month and instructed the minister to present a copy of the Guidelines and to specify the protected interests that would be harmed if the colonel were granted access to his own personal file.

Are the expenditures going into the judicial reform confidential?
Who finances the judicial reform in Bulgaria and what is the amount of funds granted by international donors?- all this is confidential information, according to the Minister of Justice. On May 18, 2005 the Sofia City Court heard a complaint of AIP against a refusal of the Minister of Justice to disclose information about the projects supporting judicial reform in Bulgaria. The main argument in the decision was that the international financial institutions, including the EC and the World Bank, had not given their consent for information disclosure. However, the information policies of these institutions clearly establish that the requested information is public, so questions remain as to whether consent actually needed to be sought .

Public discussions are confidential
This absurdity was brought to life by the Ministry of Environment and Water when refusing to disclose the protocols from public discussions on large projects financed by European funds. Among the discussed project were the constructions of Thrace and Lulin Highways.
On May 30, 2005, the Sofia City Court heard the complaint of the environmental association “For the Earth” against a refusal of the Ministry of Environmet and Water. The Environmentalists wished to read the protocols from the public discussions of large projects, financed by ISPA, the European Investment Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. According to the Environmental ministry these were preliminary documents (with no significance on their own – Art. 13 paragraph 2 of APIA) and access to them should be restricted.

How independent are the environmental experts who prepared the EIA on the Nuclear Power Plant Belene (NPP Belene)?
According to the Ministry of Environment and Water this is not public information; the conflict of interest declarations of the experts being personal data. On Thursday, June 2, the Sofia City Court will consider the complaint of the national movement Ecoglasnost against the information refusal.

The 2004 annual awards for investigative journalism...
were presented on May 17, 2005 in Mati hall. A total of forty-three articles, radio and TV broadcasts were considered by the award committee, which included the executive director of AIP, Gergana Jouleva. The ceremony was organized for the fifth consecutive year by the Association of Investigative Journalists and the Center for the Development of the Media with the support of the Embassy of Great Britain, the Open Society Institute, and the Guardian Foundation. The first prize in the National media category – a two-week training visit to Guardian was awarded to Yana Yordanova for a series of articles published in Capital Weekly about the radical Islamism in Bulgaria. In the Regional Media category the prize went to Radostina Gineva for her investigation of the demolition of 500 homes published in Haskovska Maritsa, a regional newspaper in Haskovo.

Electronic public registers will facilitate access to information
By the end of 2006 Bulgaria will have a working central electronic register, making it possible for citizens to gain access to the property register, the trade register and the tax register over the Internet.
On May 25 the new freely accessible Public Procurements register was officially introduced (http://www.aop.bg). The new product provides an opportunity for everyone to look up information about the contract and the contractors of each procurement. Still, no copies of the original documents, including the contracts, will be available on the Internet.
The development of a modern property register has already started in the town of Balchik. The new product will lead to improved security of the contracts, believes the Chairman of the Regional Court. Each property will be assigned a 17-digit identification number and its file will contain five times more information than now. The register will be publicly available, but users will be charged for access.

The Public Internal Financial Control Agency will adopt a new information policy
The Public Internal Financial Control Agency (PIFCA) presented its draft public information policy, elaborated with the support of AIP in the Open Government Initiative of USAID. On May 12-13 the draft policy was discussed and approved on a working meeting, attended by officials from the central PIFCA office and all regional offices. On June 2, 2005 PIFCA presented its 2004 annual report before the Cabinet (http://www.government.bg/15608.html).

Mr. Kalchev published the 2004 report on the state of the administration
The number of decisions on access to information requests has doubled in 2004 compared to the previous year; information is contained in the annual report for the state of the administration in 2004, which is approved by the Cabinet in early June. The number of access to information requests has decreased by 27%, claims the Minister of State Administration, Dimiter Kalchev. The report is based on information supplied by heads of administrative structures and is an attempt to analyze and evaluate the work of public institutions directed towards the interests of the society.