Shame: The Members of the Municipal Council in Razgrad
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The Nongovernmental Center in Razgrad Since 1997, the NGO Center in Razgrad has been advocating for civil participation and development of democratic processes on a local level. The NGOs Centre in Razgrad develops and implements pilot projects in support of the development of the judicial system since 2004. The NGOs Centre has implemented eight projects related to civil monitoring and support to the judicial reform in Bulgaria. During the last years, the organization has been developing its capacity as civil monitor of the institutions in Razgrad and in the district. The NGOs Centre has developed 10 years of cooperation work with the court (www.watch.ngo-rz.org) and with the police (http://www.police.ngo-rz.org/). It is among the founders and initiators for the establishment of a national NGO network for civil court watch in 2007, with current membership of 65 NGOs. The NGOs Center has initiated a Consultation center on the issues of domestic violence. |
In December 2006, the court decided that a nongovernmental organization from the city of Razgrad, which had started 30 access to information cases against municipal and state institutions in the city, should pay the legal costs in a lost access to information case at the amount of 3,000 BGN. The request under the APIA contained one simple question: how much do the members of the municipal council in Razgrad receive for their work in the commissions and the sessions of the municipal council. The court ruled that the “administrative body”, meaning the mayor Mr. Dencho Boyadzhiev or the chairperson of the municipal council Ms. Dobrinka Moneva, could conceal the size of their salaries since the law allows for “the right of silent denial.”
Instead of an answer, the society in the face of the civil organization, received a big fine for daring to disturb the authorities.
Initially, the case did not provoke any reaction in Razgrad. Traditionally, the publicity is not valued in our city. Moreover, the local authorities have always preferred moral tirades before unpleasant talks about money. However, they have used the law without hesitation to punish the curious requestors.
It turns out, however, that that other people holding the same positions but in other parts of the country think differently.
Members of municipal councils from the cities of Lom and Montana, journalists, and citizens from these two municipalities, who have learned about the “Razgrad” case from the web site of the AIP, wrote an open letter to the Razgard members of municipal council calling for the disclosure of their salaries. The latter are public in view of the law and the moral principle to the electorate and to the taxpayers.
The call was left unheard by the Municipal Council in Razgrad.
Then the members of the municipal council in Sliven raised their voice. They asked directly in the Sliven Info Portal: “How much do these people take to make them hide it?”
There appeared publications in the Pernik newspaper “Sapernik” (Opponent), in the Yambol newspaper “Tundzha,” in the Gabrovo portal Pulss.net. The journalist Veselina Sedlarska wrote an article in the national daily “Novinar.”
And since the municipal council of Razgrad remained silence, the local “Ekip 7” newspaper republished part of the articles from the AIP monthly newsletter covering the discussion about the salaries of the members of the municipal council in Razgrad.
After all, the people who have given their trust to the municipal council in Ragzrad, and more precisely, to the majority responsible for the decision had to know about the ongoing discussion on the topic. The problem is of high public interest and the case has both legal and moral dimensions.
The interest towards the publication was so high that the prints of the local newspaper “Ekip 7” were sold out. While the electorate were getting information about the actions of their representatives, the discussion gained momentum and at the end some persons from the local political life took part. The first participants were three members of the local parliament from the opposition. They were against the payment of any remunerations at all. The municipal councilor from the Union of the Democratic Forces Ivo Dimitrov had proposed in the autumn of 2003, the members of the local parliament to receive the symbolic 1 BGN for their work. In the context of the ongoing case, he exclaimed “This shame is not mine.”
His colleague Peicho Georgiev reminded that “When we suggested to work without any remuneration, the others laughed at us.” The representative from the Bulgarian Agrarian People’s Union Bogdan Stoyanov brought to the Editor’s Office of “Ekip 7” copies of charity documents evidencing that he had donated his remuneration for different causes.
Finally, when the publications in the media avalanched, the majority in the local parliament decided that it was time to talk. In a detailed statement, the members of the local parliament from the Bulgarian Socialist Party explained that they had never hidden their remunerations, criticized the opposition of populism, suspected the journalists from other regions of the country of not being well-informed and accused the team of the Non-governmental Organizations Center Razgrad of being manipulative. Despite of the variety of classifications that they gave, the disclosed the amounts paid as their remuneration.
They did it on the pages of the newspaper, after refusing to do it in the court room for almost two years.
February – March 2007
This case is part of the book "Civil Participation and Access to Information (15 Years of the APIA, 37 stories of NGOs)" published by AIP within the implementation of the project “Enhancing the Capacity of Nongovernmental Organizations to Seek Public Information” supported with a grant under the NGO Programme in Bulgaria under the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area 2009 – 2014 (www.ngogrants.bg).
The whole responsibility for the content shall be taken by the Access to Information Programme Foundaiton and it cannot be assumed under any circumstances that the document reflects the official stance of the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area and the Operator of the Programme for NGO support in Bulgaria.