Media’s access to information and perspectives for legal framework improvement

On June, 2014 a group of Members of Parliament submitted for examination a draft law providing for the modification and completion of Article 15 and 16 of the Contraventional Code. The draft law is based on recommendations for the Moldovan legal framework improvement included in the “Media’s access to information in the Republic of Moldova: issues and perspectives” survey, worked out by the experts of the Independent Journalism Centre (CIJ) during the first half of this year. The draft law did not pass the first reading, and was probably postponed to be examined by the next Parliament in 2015.
 

The practice shows that the requests on the access to information are wrongfully examined during 30 days, which is actually the term for examining petitions. Clerks are misled by the fact that Article 15 (1) of the Law on the access to information provides that the written requests on the access to information shall be registered according to the law on petitioning. Therefore, in order to avoid further wrongful examination of the request on access to information according to the Law on petitioning, the authors of the survey and future authors of the draft law suggest that the requests on access to information be recorded in a special register, also called “The register of requests on access to information”.
 

The directors/chief-editors of the media institutions, future authors of the draft law believe that the term for providing information is exaggerated – at the very most 15 working days from the date the request was recorded (or about 20 calendar days), and suggest that it should be reduced to a maximum of 10 calendar days. In the UE member states, the terms for providing information vary, but they are usually less than those in the Republic of Moldova.

A reduction in the term of providing information in Moldova is legitimate, due to the e-Government strategic program for technological modernisation implemented lately. In this respect, we recommend that the term for the official answers to requests for public information be reduced from 15 working days to not more than 10 calendar days.  
  

The media experts and the authors of the draft law believe sanctions tougher should be established for the failure to comply with the legal provisions. They suggest to amend Article 71 of the Contraventional Code and to establish sanctions 10 times higher than the existing ones, i.e. from 100 to 500 conventional units, depending on the seriousness of the violation.
In many countries of the European Union, the tacit or implicit refusal of an authority or public institution’s responsible employee to apply the legal provisions on the access to information is toughly sanctioned. For example, in Slovakia, the institution that violates the legal provisions is fined about 2000 euro.
 
Tougher sanctions for the failure to comply with the legal provisions of the Law on the access to information could discipline state institutions and, respectively, could ensure additional guarantee that the legal provisions are followed coherently.
 
The modification and completion of the Articles 15 and 16 of the Law on the access to information and Article 71 of the Contraventional Code is consistent with the provisions of the Council of Europe Convention on the access to official documents, and the Parliament adopting them would provide additional guarantees for the efficient enforcement of the Law on the access to information.

 

The article was published within the Advocacy Campaigns Aimed at Improving Transparency of Media Ownership, Access to Information and promotion of EU values  and integration project, implemented by the IJC, which is, in its turn, part of the Moldova Partnerships for Sustainable Civil Society project, implemented by FHI 360.
 
This article is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The content are the responsibility of author and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.