GONG Says Report on Implementation of FOAI Law Unrealistic

GONG

GONG association criticized the Report on the Implementation of the Law on Free Access to Information for 2006, discussed last Friday in the Croatian Sabor, and claims that the data it lists are incorrect and don�t correspond to the actual situation in the field.

The results of GONG�s survey of implementation of the FOAI Law demonstrate that a number of highest state bodies and offices submitted incorrect data to the Central Administrative Office, both on received requests for information and the number of requests they responded to. This refers in particular to the Government, the Sabor, the Office of the President and the Ombudsman.

GONG says that some bodies of public administration didn�t submit their data at all. Also, in some cases, the data provided were accumulations, for example, at municipal, district or city levels, which makes it impossible to check the validity and veracity of submitted information.

In fact, each body can submit to the Central Administrative Office data that demonstrate that it didn�t violate the Law, but the Office, or the citizens for that matter, are not able to check the veracity of the claims and sanction the bodies that may have submitted false data.

GONG is concerned, because of all the facts presented earlier, that the data in the Report may be incomplete, but also because some public bodies try to cover the fact that they don�t operate on principles of transparency and public access.

At the roundtable discussion scheduled to take place on April 23, GONG will present the information on the last survey of implementation of FOAI legislation in Croatia, together with its recommendations for improvements in the legislation and examples of good practices from other countries.