The Engineer Filed a Record Number of
|
Non-profit Association "Civil Control - Animal Protection" The association has initiated and participated in inspections of municipal insulators (i.e. "Shelters") for stray animals. After finding substantial management and activities violations the shelters in Plovdiv, Smolyan, Gabrovo, Sevlievo were closed. The association submitted two proposals to the National Assembly for amendments to the Law on Animal Protection, which were included in the 2011 law amendments. It participated in working groups at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food drafting amendments to the Law on Animal Protection and related regulations. It has organized and took part in a number of civil actions and protests. The association had dozens of legal cases against the Ministry of Agriculture and Food (MAF), the Ministry of Environment and Waters, the Regional Inspection on Environment and Waters, municipalities. Among its achievements is the repealing of Regulation No. 41 of the MAF (on the Shelters), the partial repealing of a Regulation of the MAF for the animal experimentation, as well as repealing of acts by the RIEW – Plovdiv (Environmental Impact Assessments). |
He is an engineer by educational background and an environmentalist in his soul. His home is always full of animals that he takes care of. His computer is full with requests under the Access to Public Information Act (APIA). The animal protection is a matter of life philosophy and personal stance for Georgi Serbezov. Together with his collaborators Penka Popova and doctor Georgi Litov, Serbezov thinks that a nongovernmental organization could not be effective if it was not comprised of motivated and devoted people who do the work. In the beginning, they started to act as authorized representatives of the Association for Animal Protection – Plovdiv. In the end of 2011, they established the Nonprofit Association "Civil Control - Animal Protection", and Serbezov became its chairperson.
The problem with the stray dogs is a result of the inactivity of the municipalities and the protection of the state control bodies. This is the position that the NGO activists present numerously before the parliament, the National Ombudsman, the Council of Ministers, the Prosecutor’s Office, and the police. The other name of that inactivity is lawlessness since the protection of animals is legally provided for more than three years already.
In practice, the municipalities openly ignore the Law on Animal Protection since no one is working out any measures for limiting the population of stray dogs, says Serbezov. He filed three access to information requests – to the Municipality pf Pleven, to the Municipality of Smolyan, and to the Minister of Agriculture and Foods.
The first provides complete access to information, the second refuses and the NGO started proceeding in the court. The minister also refused to provide information about the number of mayors who had submitted annual reports on the implementation of their obligations to take measures for the implementation of municipal council programs for limiting the population of stray dogs (Art. 40, Para 1 and 2 of the Law on Animal Protection). Nor did the minister provide a copy his report. The court cases are scheduled for hearing in 2012.
Georgi Serbezov is persistently filing requests under the APIA, convinced that this is the smart and legal way to pressure the institutions to perform their functions and implement the law. 80 percent of these requests are related to the protection of animals, but the engineer and his partners are willing to fight for any cause of public importance. They were very active in the public debate on the future of one of the emblematic buildings in the center of Plovdiv – the cinema theater Cosmos
According to Serbezov, the refusals based on absurd grounds are increasing. The tricks that the administration uses to go around the Access to Public Information Act increase as well.
The engineer shares the case when three citizens separately requested information from the former Mayor Slavcho Atanasov about an illegal demonstration held in front of the City Hall at a time, when the Initiative for Saving the Cinema Theater Cosmos was holding a press conference.
None of the requestors received a decision under the APIA and the silent refusal was challenged in court. It was then when it became clear that the mayor had issued a decision but did not inform the requestors about that.
Serbezov fears that such practices can be used by the administration against the requestors. It turns out that if the authority did not inform the requestor about its decision, the only way to know about the existence of such a decision was to start court proceedings against a hypothetical silent refusal.
At the court hearing, the lawyers take out the decision, ending the case but staring the problems for the requestor.
Briefly: The engineer has a bitter experience of how the administration can trick the inconvenient requestors into confused court proceedings. Serbezov is penalized to pay the lawyer’s fee in one of the numerous cases against the mayor and the regional governor at the amount of 100 BGN. During the first month after the court decision, the municipality started executory proceedings without even sending a warrant for voluntary execution. Together with the executor’s taxes Serbezov had to pay 250 BGN for his willingness to sue the mayor. Such a tendency is observed recently. This is a way to exercise material sanction on the right of access to information that would discourage a lot to seek and defend their rights, according to Serbezov.
He is really disappointed with the fact that he had won more than 10 court cases under the APIA and had consulted at least the same number, but no official have ever been sanctioned with a fee for not complaining with the law.
January 2012
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.