Participants of the of the two-day Regional conference on application of the Law on Free Access to Information, which was held in Skopje on 29 and 30 September, agreed that there was no clear distinction between the public’s right to know and the right to privacy in public sector, nor single European standards in this field. A representative of the Directorate for European Integration also took part in the conference. According to the experts in this field, the public interest should have priority over the right to protection of privacy of public office holders whenever dilemma occurs between the two.

All countries of the Western Balkans have adopted their own laws on free access to information with similar contents and scope. However, each country is facing with either weak or inconsistent application of the law. The statistics show that every second citizen of the Western Balkans countries is not aware of the fact that the law is in force, whereas two thirds, although being aware, have never submitted access to information request. The tools used to increase transparency of public administration may help overcome such practice. These tools include monthly work reports that are publicly available on the web pages of institutions, accession to Open Government Partnership initiative (OGP) and respect of open access to information principle, direct communication with citizens seeking information from the public administration, as well as proactive provision of information on the objectives and results of the activities of the public administration.

• BiH was the first country of the Western Balkans to adopt the Law on Free Access to Information in 2000.
• According to an assessment analysis by Access Info Europe and Canadian organisation Centre for Law and Democracy, Serbia has the best Law on Free Access to Information in the world.
• The shortest deadline to act upon access to information request is in Montenegro (eight days).
• The International Right to Know Day takes place on 28 September.

The Conference participants agreed that consistent application of the Law on Free Access to Information makes the citizens less suspicious and reduces their doubts about the activities of public administration.

The Conference also dealt with the personal data protection and methods for preventing the abuse of the Law on Free Access to Information, i.e. preventing the situations where citizens deliberately hinder the work of administration by frequent requests for the same comprehensive data.

The Conference was organised by TAIEX (Technical Assistance and Information Exchange Instrument) in cooperation with the Commission for Protection of the Right to Free Access to Public Information of the Republic of Macedonia. The conference brought together representatives of the institutions from Albania, BiH, Montenegro, Croatia, Kosovo*, Macedonia and Serbia with whom experts from Slovenia, Estonia, Great Britain and Romania shared EU experiences.

(Source: Direkcija za evropske integracije)