On the occasion of International Right to Know Day, a panel entitled “What we have achieved and what separates us from good governance” was organised by Information Commissioner Dr Anamarija Musa at the Hotel Dubrovnik. The panel’s aim was to generate a discussion on the progress made in the implementation of the legal framework for the realisation of access to information in the nearly three years of existence of the independent institution of the Information Commissioner and to assess the challenges that separate us from the full realization of the goal of having a transparent and open government and administration.
On this occasion, the results of the projects implemented with the support of the British Embassy were presented, which in part coincide with the fulfilling of activities from the Action Plan with the Anti-Corruption Strategy 2015 to 2016, as well as the Action Plan for the implementation of the Open Government Partnership 2014-2016 Initiative. The event was opened by British Ambassador to the Republic of Croatia Andrew Stuart Dalgleish LLB, by Minister of Administration and President of the Council for the Open Government Partnership Initiative Dr Dubravka Jurlina Alibegović, as well as by High Administrative Court Judge Lidija Rostaš-Beroš, who were there as the representatives of an institution whose support has been important in the development of new tools to improve the application of the Act on the Right of Access to Information.
Presented to those present were the List of Public Bodies and TOM – Searchable database of decisions and opinions of the Information Commissioner and the High Administrative Court applications as well as the search capabilities thereof, the educational and promotional materials for the Implementation of the Act on Access to Information, as well as the website of the Information Commissioner in English, which is meant to clarify the legal framework to potential non-Croatian-speaking beneficiaries.
The Information Commissioner thanked everyone, but especially the British Embassy for the support provided in the establishment of the institution of the Commissioner. She also stressed that transparency and openness are an integral part of public administration, and that problems related to the exercise of access to information can only be resolved through the joint cooperation of the public, private and civil sectors, of the academic community, the media, of concerned citizens and of all other stakeholders, and therefore called for the use of the presented tools which certainly can contribute to a higher level of proactive publication, to the elimination of administrative silence, to the standardization and application of the Act and to raising awareness of the existence of the right to access and to the re-use of information.
This was followed by an interesting panel discussion which was contributed to by Dr Josip Kregar from the Zagreb Faculty of Law, by Assoc. prof. Dr Polonca Kovac of the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Administration, by Jelena Berković from the Gong, civil service organisation, by Toni Gabrić from H-alter (Association for Media Culture), by 24 Sata journalist Tomislav Klauški, by Miroslav Schlossberg from the Code for Croatia Association and many other participants. During the debate, the need to regulate lobbying and trade secrets as well as the issue of the public disclosure of the composition of working groups for the drafting of laws were determined to be manners of achieving a more transparent and open government and a better quality legislation and implementation framework.
Also introduced was the Guide on Access to Information for the SMEs, which translated and adapted by members of Code for Croatia, who also administer the imamopravoznati.org platform, through which over 3000 requests for access to information were sent to public authorities over the course of the last 16 months.
You can see a map of the world which indicates how other countries and organizations marked International Right to Know Day here (look for Zagreb!): https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=119YYGJMpBhiSNLtXzaqKZSJ45iU
You can find the panel’s programme here.
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