The Government has got the money for renovation of its vehicle fleet, but has none for the protection of the citizens constitutional rights to access information, though it is one of the basic means for preventing corruption. Perhaps we are not talking about Faberge eggs here, but European gold could remain out of reach for quite some time yet, since Banski dvori seem to forget this is one of the ten tasks the European Commission gave Croatia to complete before entering the European Union.
The Government has got the money for renovation of its vehicle fleet, but has none for the protection of the citizens constitutional rights to access information, though it is one of the basic means for preventing corruption. Perhaps we are not talking about Faberge eggs here, but European gold could remain out of reach for quite some time yet, since Banski dvori seem to forget this is one of the ten tasks the European Commission gave Croatia to complete before entering the European Union.
Acceptance of the new Act on right to access information, in order to strengthen the legal and administrative framework in the area of accessing information, is one of the ten tasks that the EC has listed as homework for Croatian Government , little more than a month ago in their report on the overall progress before their entry into the EU. After today’s sessionof the Cabinet, from whence a proposal of the new FOI Act has been sent before Parliament, the Government may put a check mark on the said subject, thus only attempting to mislead, both domestic and international public.
Specifically, the transparency of public authorities activity presumes democratization according to the Government, however, what do they mean when they state that ” it is not required to provide means for the implementation of the said Act”? And although the Act includes a new alternative: 1.) Personal Data Protection Agency (PDPA) will perform the duties as an independent body until Information and Data Protection Commissioner is appointed, and 2.) Commissioner’s Cabinet will take over PDPA’s employees, activities, equipment, files and other documents, instruments of labor, financial resources, rights and obligations.
PDPA confident of fulfilling their task
PDPA has several times complained about the lack of financial resources and personnelas an aggravating factor in their performance of tasks assigned to them, and continuous warnings of diabolical attitude of the Government towards two equally constitutional rights – personal data protection and free access to information – are constantly issued by GONG. Among other things, in their recently released 7th annual survey on the FOIA implementation, GONG showed that despite institutions on national level are aware of the need to answer RAIA’s demands, there is no consistent policy or a coherent implementation of the Act.One of the reasons is the shortage of funds required for its implementation, as well as for the necessary training for supervisors and citizens, as a key prerequisite for the implementation.
”Realizing the importance of this issue for the democratization of Croatian society and for strengthening the transparency in bodies of public authority, PDPA anticipated this possibility in their next year’s financial plans, thus providing additional funds to solve the issue of Agency’s capacity , at the expense of its other activities linked to the Department for Protection of right to access information. Thus, the new structure of the Agency and the organization of the special monitoring department, with six employees, and the addition of two new employees to the department for the protection of the rights of access to information, which makes a total of six employees, enable undisturbed protection of Croatian citizens to know what public authorities are doing and where budget money is spent. Within new structure of the Agency, 14 employees will be involved in activities in the area of freedom of information, with the logistic support of other staff of the Agency”, commented after the session today Dubravko Bilić, Director of PDPA, who is nonetheless confident that “the Agency will fulfill all the duties imposed by the European Commission”.
GONG extremely concerned about the outcome
However, while PDPA considers it to be enough to implement the new Act, GONG’s analysis suggests that PDPA , due to their increased workload, need 10 more people for quality implementation of the new FOIA, as it includes supervision of all public authorities . However, it turns out that such doubts are unnecesery thanks to the Government, especially the Ministry of Finance who are strongly squeezing the budget lineup, because they believe that the implementation of the Act does not require additional funds and intend to solve the problem by relocating within the system – even though it proved insufficiently effective.
Meanwhile, during the recent joint session of the Parliament’s Committee for European Integration and Platform 112, a part of which is GONG, it has been pointed out that mere passing the Act cannot be considered sufficient for fulfilling the task; ensuring the implementation of the Act , on the other hand, would do – which cannot be achieved without sufficient means. However, such means, being considered as operating costs, are available to the Ministry of Interiors for their purchase of 64 vehicles through an operating lease, for which 520,000 kunas will be issued monthly, amounting to more than 16 million kunas over next three years.
Just for the sake of comparison, two or three million kunas would be sufficient to provide one of key mechanisms in fighting the corruption, and tools to start economic revival. Therefore, the only explanation would be in not recognizing the basic principles of successful government as well as new possibilities for economic growth.
The more so,seeing that the Cabinet has adopted a draft Action Plan of the Anti-Corruption Strategy, a very interesting thing being that the chapter titled “The right of access to information” makes no mention of the adoption of a new “ZPPI” as a completely new context, no mention of any measures of its implementation, training, inspection, not to mention raising of citizens’ awareness.
The Government misses the opportunity – again
It is questionable how certain measures, considered worthy of budgetary resources by the Government, will be implemented in practice – namely who will take responsibility for ”strengthening the integrity, accountability and transparency in the work of government bodies and the related enhancing of citizens trust in state institutions” when there are those who refuse to be included into, for example, planned registers, and the first coming to mind is one related to public-private partnership?
Given all the above, and assuming that FOIA will ultimately become the best Act in the world, without its implementation for which there is no money, it will have zero value and will become one more evidence of a systematic problem where the authorities do not truly realize that improvements in the legislative framework are needed not just to formally meet the conditions required to close the negotiations, but because of the rule of law and the exercise of basic human rights and freedoms in Croatia.
In this regard, if meanwhile there are no changes in the right direction, we can only conclude that even the actual Government obviously do not consider the FOIA as a relevant tool in fighting corruption and has again missed the opportunity to take advantage of further enchancing transparency and accountability of public authorities.
Andreja Žapčić