Themis’ Collisions
After four years of litigation, the court has decided that the citizens have the right to know what amount of their taxes goes for trips of municipal officials
Stela Kovacheva
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 Center main activities are in the areas of strengthening democratic institutions, of ethnic minorities, vulnerable groups, social services and civil rights.
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. |
The case „are the official trips of these in power public information or official secret” made noise in 2004 when the NGOs Center in Razgrad demanded from the municipality an account of where, when and at what price two of the deputies of the mayor travelled on official trips for the past 14 year.
As it was expected by the consistent practices, the authority refused to respond to the question set forth under the Access to Public Information Act (APIA). In the case of the deputy-mayor Kina Dyakova, the institution remained silent. While in the case of the deputy mayor Stanka Angelova, the information was refused as official secret.
In response, the nongovernmental organization started litigation which resulted in the following at the level of Regional Court of Razgrad:
1. The court practices on identical cases within the same court could be completely different. One of the court panels decided that Dyakova’s official trips in the country and abroad were “personal data” and the information was protected under the Personal Data Protection Act. Regarding Angelova’s official trips, another court panel decided that only part of the information was secret and that the number and the purpose of the trips was subject to disclosure.
2. Ignoring the differences in the grounds, it is quite apparent that the justices are trying to save their colleagues from the executive power from the inconvenient publicity.
With their decisions, the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) turned the two cases back to the first instance court for consideration as the official trips of the deputy mayors could not be considered “personal data” and could not be secret in any of its parts.
In April, a new panel of the Regional Court of Razgrad decided that the amount of the official trips expenses made by the deputy mayor Stanka Angelova was public information because she did not travel in her private capacity, but as a representative of the local authority.
However, a refusal followed again from the municipality regardless of the court decision. That time, the refusal was grounded in the declaration that the official trips documents were destroyed. That argument urged the Supreme Court to remind the municipal administration in Razgrad that the Law on the State Archive Fund required that the documents are held for 5 years. This means that the data about Stanka Angelova’s official trips at least for the period 2000 – 2004 should be disclosed.
The hope that the local authority will execute the court decision and will disclose the information requested by the citizens is still an expectation. It is not clear if the municipal officials offensive attitude will be replaced with openness and transparency under the public pressure. We cannot know what the mayor’s staff would do, but it is certain that the NGO will continue to ask questions under the APIA until the authority realizes that it is obliged to be accountant to those whose money it spends.
May 2008
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.
|