Harsher Fines for Violations of the Law on Access to Information

A draft law developed by the experts of the Independent Journalism Center, which provides for modifying Article 71 of the Contraventions Code by increasing up to 10 times the size of fines for violation of the law on access to information, is to be proposed to the parliament for voting in the second reading. The Parliamentary Commission of Legal Issues, Appointments and Immunity issued a positive opinion on this draft law at its meeting on November 9. Journalists believe that these changes will make authorities more responsible.

According to the draft law, violations of the law on access to information or the law on petitions will be penalized with a fine of 100 to 150 conventional units (5,000 to 7,500 lei) for individuals and 300 to 400 conventional units (15,000 to 20,000 lei) for officials in responsible positions. At the same time, the presentation of a reply with wrong data will be penalized with a fine of 400 to 500 conventional units (20,000 to 25,000 lei) applied to an official in responsible position.

Investigative journalists, who request dozens of data but do not always obtain them from authorities, support these changes. At the same time, they draw attention to the quality of officials’ replies. “In my opinion, monetary sanctions will make authorities more responsible. However, there is the risk of officials providing superficial replies only to meet the deadline and not be fined,” believes Lilia Zaharia, special reporter for the Association of Independent Press and moldovacurata.md portal.

Anastasia Nani, editor-in-chief of anticoruptie.md, believes that when a journalist requests information, they seek to write a well-argued article, and not bring to responsibility the official who was late to reply. “On the other hand, given that authorities have been intentionally delaying provision of information of public interest lately and often find covers that they hide behind, such as personal data, I’d like to believe that such sanctions will make them more responsible,” says Anastasia Nani.

According to lawyer Vitalie Zama of “Lawyers for Human Rights” public association, one of the experts who worked on this draft law, increasing fines will facilitate more rapid provision of the information requested, without referring to personal data. “The public’s curiosity for information of high interest sometimes attempts to personal (confidential) information. Authorities in any case put to the balance the information that needs to be protected and the information that can be provided, i.e. they have to choose what prevails – public interest or the interest of the person whose personal data are being protected. One of the obstacles in making this assessment is the relatively small fine for restriction of access to information in comparison to considerable fines for violation of confidentiality. Thus, at the moment officials have to choose between two evils: the smaller evil, i.e. the smaller fine for violation of the law on access to information. The fines proposed in this draft law will facilitate providers of information to provide the information requested, since the size of fines will no longer be decisive in making the decision to provide information,” commented Vitalie Zama.
 

Proposals on the draft law on modifying and supplementing Law no. 982-XIV of May 11, 2000 on access to information have been developed by IJC experts within the advocacy campaign of the Independent Journalism Center for modifying the Law on Access to Information.