The Civil Control Scares the Authorities
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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. |
A fight for transparency of the salaries of the local government members in Razgrad triggered public debate in the city. After the Bulgarian Socialist Party majority in the local government had refused to respond under the Access to Public Information Act about the amount of their remuneration, the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the refusal and ruled against the NGO that had requested the information, the AIP triggered a discussion through the local media. Pressed by the public dissatisfaction, the BSP members of local government announced the amount of their 2006 remunerations on the pages of the local newspaper “Ekip 7.” Is the civil organization that had started the debate satisfied with the ending of the story and how does it evaluate the hardly achieved openness – we asked the chairperson of the NGO Center in Razgrad Georgi Milkov.
Do you consider yourself a moral winner in the case – the salaries of the local government members were announced after all.
I see the question and the expected answer as wrong. Firstly, the question we set forth under the APIA was related not only to the amount of remunerations received for participation in sessions and commissions of the local parliament, but also to the sums received by the local government members from the municipal budget. Besides the so called salaries we requested the members to disclose the money received as honoraria for providing different services for the municipality – participation in procurement tenders, expert assessments, etc. We do not deny the right of the municipal councilors to be paid for their services. We just wanted to make it clear how much does any of them cost to us, the taxpayers. Not only we did not receive the expected public information, but we were sentenced to pay 3,000 BGN court fees. The amounts disclosed after that are only part of the money received by the members from the BSP and the Rights and Freedoms Movement for 2006. The information published in “Ekip 7” is accompanied by allegations that we have never questioned the most respected gentlemen for their salaries personally. That is true. We filed a request under the APIA and they are not obliged to respond in their capacity of private persons. The mayor and the chairperson of the Municipal Council, however, are obliged to provide public information as there are public bodies. That is why we questioned the administrative heads who hold the information. We believe that suggestions that they would have disclosed happily information if we had had asked them personally is pure demagogy. If they had wanted to be so open and honest to their electorate, why did they authorized their co-party member Dimitar Stoyanov to represent them in two court instances?
It turns out that you are not satisfied that the remunerations of the local government members in Razgrad were publicly disclosed?
How could we be satisfied when the BSP majority which has been governing the municipality since 1990 does not want openness and publicity. In this fight for transparency, the BSP members of the municipal council were silently supported by their collegues from the Rights and Freedoms Movements – the four of them also had refused to disclose their remuneration. We have lodged 35 questions to the local administration under the APIA. None was answered voluntarily. We have appealed all silent refusals and we have won 9 cases already at the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC). Regardless of the favoring court decisions, the municipal administration insists on holding the information secret. The last case is from March 12, 2007 when the SAC ruled that the official trips expenses made by the Deputy-mayor Kina Dyakova should be disclosed. A month and a half passed since the court decision and the information has not been provided yet. At the same time, the Mayor Dencho Boyadzhiev, is a lawyer himself. Ha has been a member of the municipal council for 15 years, former member of the Grand National Assembly and an attorney-at-law for many years. This is apparently not enough to respect and execute the court decision.
Are you going to actively search for answers of questions relate to public information?
We are a civil organization and the arbitrariness of public officials cannot discourage or scares us. The purpose of all our efforts is to make those in power listen to the public. That is why we will continue to question the authorities under the APIA and sue them if they refuse to provide information. We will continue to criticize them loudly as well. The truth is that civil pressure scares those in power, but does not make them more responsive. In Bulgaria, public officials pressured by the European rules for openness become more aggressive – instead of becoming more open and transparent, they look for ways to hide inconvenient information. They hope to mislead the people by imitating transparency in insignificant cases. The civil conscious has, however, reached such a level that it recognizes such cheap tricks. In Razgrad, my colleagues and I are accused of attacking the local government motivated by political convictions opposite to the left ones. That is why I would like to emphasize that the NGOs Center Razgrad is currently implementing two big projects of civil monitoring over the court system in Northeast Bulgaria. We monitor the work of the magistrates in 6 court districts, regardless of the fact that they are not involved in politics. This is the job of the third sector – to exercise control over the authorities by civil monitoring. That is why we put nothing personal in the questions set forth under the APIA and the consecutive appeals filed in court against refusals. We will continue to ask questions to those in power. If they get used to responding and providing information, we will be thankful. If not – we will strengthen the civil pressure and sue them. These are the rules of the game in Europe and already in Bulgaria.
April 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.