Part of the non-governmental sector, by abusing the Request for Free Access to Information, achieves significant material benefit at the expense of the state budget, according to the Agency for the Protection of Personal Data and Free Access to Information.
It is stated that the Council of the Agency observed the practice of abuse of that right, in the decision-making process on appeals against acts that were decided on the basis of requests for free access to information.
The Agency said that the practice of abuse of the right to free access to information was observed in a part of the non-governmental sector.
"This is also shown by the examples of cases in which the party withdraws from the appeal and does not want information on that occasion, and incurs costs through the initiation of administrative disputes, where, depending on the complexity of the case, compensation for the costs of the administrative dispute is realized from 200 to 1.079 euros per case before the Administrative by the court of Montenegro", says the Agency's press release.
It is estimated that the successful implementation of the Law on Free Access to Information is necessary in order to strengthen the transparency of the work of government bodies, and in the spirit of improving democratic processes.
In the Agency's announcement, it points out that in addition to the indisputably justified and proven purpose of affirming the public interest, the implementation showed burdens in the disproportionately large number of complaints addressed to the Agency as a second instance body.
The Agency said that the intensity of administrative disputes has been increasing since 2016 and will culminate in 2023.
It is stated that in 2016, the Agency received 3.554 complaints, in 2021, 5.405 complaints, of which 4.101 cases were decided.
The Agency said that in 2022 they received 8.865 complaints, and that 3.742 were decided.
It is emphasized that in 2023, the Agency received 7.365 complaints, and that 5.385 were decided.
"The data for 2024 show that the Agency received 1.437 complaints in January and February," the statement said.
It is indicated that court cases before the Administrative Court of Montenegro from 2019 to 2022 amounted to 636.436,71 euros.
It is stated that the court costs paid to the plaintiffs when the proceedings were resolved in their favor in 2019 and 2020 accounted for 20-25 percent of the executed budget of the Agency, i.e. about 195.000 euros.
It is emphasized that it is evident that in recent years a large number of requests for access to information have been recorded at the first-instance authorities, as well as a large number of initiated proceedings before the Agency.
"Which leads to the dilemma of whether these requests are aimed at exercising the right to access information of public importance or whether this legal mechanism is being used in order to obtain material benefits at the expense of the state budget due to short legal deadlines and deficiencies in the law," they said from Agencies.
They stated that they have informed the competent state authorities about this problem on several occasions so that it could be addressed in a comprehensive manner based on European standards.
I will explain from the Agency that this implies the definition of the institute of misuse of the right to free access to information, which should be accompanied by an adequate standard of limitation, i.e. balance between realizing the right of the public to know about abuses of rights.
It is estimated that due to different practices of interpretation by authorities, it is necessary to specify the definition of authorities.
The Agency believes that it is necessary to consider more precise standardization of the issue of the costs of the procedure, from the initial request to the end of the procedure and the dispute.
They pointed out that in the short processing time of three days from the receipt of the request, an environment is created that the right of the party cannot be secured within the prescribed time frame in the way that it is foreseen in the proposal to amend the Law.
"The consequences of such a solution will already have an expected large number of cases which, due to the lack of staffing capacity in the Agency, will not be implemented in a timely manner," the Agency believes.
It is emphasized that this issue cannot be viewed in isolation only from the perspective of the Agency, but primarily as a systemic-institutional inclusive process of all subjects of society, branches of government, the public and all participants of this right.
"The untimely systemic solution to this open problem calls into question the institutional concept, sustainability and purpose of the Agency, and therefore the concept of this extremely important human and democratic European right," the announcement concludes.
Bonus video:
