The Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina unanimously approved the Draft Law on Freedom of Access to Information at the Institutional Level of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the EI designation as a confirmation of appropriate compliance with European Union regulations in this area.
The draft law, prepared by the Ministry of Justice of BiH, adopts the provisions of Directive (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and the Council from June 2019 on open data and the reuse of public sector documents to the extent that this is possible at the current stage of the integration process of BiH.
The principles on which the proposed law is based are aimed, among other things, at strengthening the transparency and openness of public authorities, free and free access to information with timeliness and accuracy in its publication, and strengthening the responsibility of BiH institutions in this process.
In addition to freedom of access to information based on a submitted request for access, which is also defined by the current Law on Freedom of Access to Information in BiH, the novelty in the proposed law is the electronic submission of requests and the introduction of a completely new model of proactive publication of certain information important for the work, organization, decision-making and financing of institutions BiH. Also, a significant step forward in strengthening the transparency of BiH institutions is the establishment of a central portal of public information as a publicly available tool on the Internet, which enables users to have equal and permanent access to information stored in the database of electronic documents and/or physical collections of documents. At the same time, effective and efficient protection of the applicant is ensured in the second-instance procedure on appeal and ultimately before the court by initiating an administrative dispute.
The Ministry of Justice will submit the Draft Law on Freedom of Access to Information at the Institutional Level of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH for consideration under a shortened legislative procedure.
