On Thursday, the civic organizations and media in Montenegro have called on Prime Minister Dusko Markovic to postpone public consultations about the draft freedom of information law amid the coronavirus outbreak.
More than 50 civic organizations, journalists and media organizations warned that the lockdown had made participatory debate almost impossible.
“We have numerous restrictions on movement and there are no sessions of parliament, so there are no elementary conditions to hold a meaningful public debate on the issue,” their joint letter states.
On March 31, civil society organizations and journalists also called for a postponement, while the chair of the watchdog body Transparency International, Delia Ferreira Rubio, advised that any non-emergency legislative measure that requires public consultation should be postponed until full, active participation can be guaranteed.
Despite that, the Ministry of Public Administration has called for written comments on the law amendments to be submitted via the ministry’s email address by April 13. After that, the ministry announced, a public debate will be organized using a video conference.
“The draft law has numerous proposals that narrow our rights on information from state bodies. It also restricts the work of investigative journalists and the non-governmental sector,” the signatories to the letter said, referring to the proposed law.
The government proposed the draft law in March 2019. It would allow it to declare any information “classified” if its disclosure would affect a government body’s ability to function.
It also removes controls over the ways in which state bodies declare information classified. Civic organizations, media groups and opposition parties have insisted that the amendments are not in line with the Montenegrin constitution, or with international agreements that the country has signed up to.
The country’s culture of official secrecy has attracted European attention. The European Commission’s 2019 report on Montenegro noted that official secrecy was cited in 68 denied requests for information in 2017, well up from 30 the year before.
It described an increasing practice of declaring requested documents classified, in order to restrict access to information, as a matter of concern. The report also stated that court decisions on access to information are not effectively enforced.
In the COVID-19 pandemic, people are being arrested in Serbia for posting or texting messages that contain information that can be linked with the ongoing health crisis – their actions being classified as acts of spreading panic and causing disorder by spreading fake news. They can face up to three years in prison, or a fine.
It comes as people, independent journalists especially, are subjected to severe limitations of freedom of speech under the excuse of the health crisis, which in some cases has also led to their incarceration.
Looking at all these cases as part of a contextualised story, they clearly expose the authoritarian tendency of the regime in Serbia to curb freedoms far more than is necessary during the state of emergency – no doubt knowing that it will leave behind a lot of fear and intimidation, which will last far longer than any pandemic.
Journalist Ana Lalic. Photo: Vesna Lalic /Nova.rs
Last Wednesday, for example, Ana Lalic, a journalist from the online portal Nova S, was arrested merely for reporting poor conditions in the Vojvodina Clinical Centre. She was released the next day thanks to huge pressure from the media and civil society organisations.
Another important decision followed on Thursday when, on the Serbian President’s request, the government withdrew its earlier decision, issued on March 31 , giving the central Crisis Staff led by Prime Minister Ana Brnabic the exclusive right to inform the public about anything linked with the COVID-19 crisis. This seriously endangered media freedoms.
Before this, the information flow had been put under the full control of the government of a country that has dropped 14 places recently in terms of media freedom to 90th position among 180 countries, according to the global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.
Rule of Law is suffering in COVID-19 outbreak
The rule of law in Serbia was nothing to be proud about already, and the scope of political influence on the judiciary remains a matter of concern. Now, many lawyers and legal experts have warned of the unconstitutionality of decisions issued during the state of emergency, and questioning the state of emergency itself.
The latest statement from the Bar Chamber of Serbia , addressing the constitutionality of the decision to declare a state of emergency, emphasised that the chamber will “always react when they evaluate that there has been a serious disruption of legal state order, which can be dangerous for the legal state functioning”.
But digital rights, and rights to privacy and freedom of expression on the internet all face serious limitations and breaches. In the illiberal democracies of the region, dominated by elements of authoritarian regimes, there is legitimate concern about disproportionate interference in citizens’ personal data and a justified belief that the newly imposed measures are not properly tailored to achieve their objective while minimally damaging guaranteed rights.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade, Serbia. Photo: EPA-EFE/KOCA SULEJMANOVIC
President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia, while introducing the latest measures there, has openly said that the authorities there “see everything”. Those who have entered the country since March 14 are now receiving SMS messages with new rules applying to their situation. We do not have the privilege of being assured that the ongoing tracking and monitoring of individuals and communities is being carried out strictly in line with human rights, however. There is also concern about the future use of the data being collected during this crisis.
Several arrests because of social media posts and account bans have occurred since March 30, while, on the other hand, a page called “COVID 19 Serbia” – which targets journalists and government opponents with sponsored posts during the crisis – functions normally. It is obvious some people are being permitted to use this global disease in the most disgraceful way to hurt others.
The case of the Nova S journalist happened in a certain context, and in an atmosphere where journalists’ right to put questions to the government has been limited, and shortly after the decision was made on controlling the flow of information.
Human rights organisations have issued a joint statement calling on governments to refrain from taking unbalanced measures that violate human rights. The European Union Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, has said: “Challenges that governments face during the COVID-19 pandemic are no excuse for clamping down on press freedom and restricting access to information”.
Unprecedented challenges in countering #COVID19 are no excuse to clamp down on press & restrict access to information. All @coe states shld preserve #PressFreedom & ensure that measures vs disinformation are necessary, proportionate & subject to oversight https://t.co/0P0ZRsaTU4pic.twitter.com/woMsKaZLS0
— Commissioner for Human Rights (@CommissionerHR) April 3, 2020
The announcement of the withdrawal of the decision on the information flow – only two days after it was declared – and the release of the journalist Lalic – have been presented as acts of mercy and kindness on the part of the President when more important tasks face the country at the moment.
While the decision was still in force, however, another arrest occurred, of a 34-year-old man, this time for posting a tweet. He was detained on suspicion of spreading panic and causing disorder by allegedly spreading fake news on Twitter saying that Serbia would impose a 24-hour curfew. The man was released the next day, after he told police he was not the author of the fake news and only got the information from his wife who works at the construction, transport and infrastructure ministry.
A day before his arrest, Serbia’s Interior Minister warned citizens that disinformation was circulating on social networks about the alleged new 24-hour curfew, while the tabloid Informer claimed that this fake news was being spread via SMS, and published a number from which the message supposedly arrived.
This text was removed on Wednesday, and replaced with the new one, after users of Telekom Serbia mobile provider received a message about the “Dramatic situation in Serbia” sent to them on the request of central Crisis Staff for COVID-19 suppression – from the same number that Informer had first claimed was used to send the message about “24-hour curfew”.
Real paradise for pro-government media
Before the health crisis finally erupted in Serbia, pro-government media were accusing the opposition and independent-minded people of spreading panic and frightening the public with the pandemic.
Once the COVID-19 pandemic started to really affect Serbia, they rapidly changed their tune – but kept the same authentic style.
Some of the headlines related to coronavirus published on the front page of Informer daily newspaper – “Corona in Serbia under complete control” (top left); “Sick plan of SZS (Alliance for Serbia), spreading lies about coronavirus and migrants in order to postpone the elections and take Vucic down” (top right); “Coronavirus escaped from the laboratory” (down left); “Dr Branimir Nestorovic explained: Coronavirus is ridiculous! No need to wear masks” (down right). Photo: BIRN/Novinarnica.net
At a press conference on Thursday, for example, when the pro-government media asked the President questions, they insulted the journalist Lalic and the portal she works for. Dragan Vucicevic, editor of Serbia’s most popular tabloid, even expressed concern that her release might officially legitimise the publication of fake news in Serbia – tough talk from a man whose media outlet has routinely used published unverified and fake information, and which has been proved to be a pro-government biased news factory!
President Vucic reminded all journalists that, besides the criminal code , Serbia has norms that regulate the responsibilities of journalists and the media (Section 5, Article 38-41) and other individuals for fake news distribution and spreading and causing panic among the public (Article 343).
But one might argue that certain rules seem applicable only to regular citizens – and to media that report on government wrongdoings.
Not limited to one country
As usual, bad trends in the Balkans never emerge only in one country. Arrests for posts on social media and articles, removal of content from websites, or even removal of whole websites, banning accounts, and limitations on journalistic work are all happening in other countries in the region as well.
Additionally, citizens’ personal data and lists of names of infected people are being shared on the internet – and no one is being prosecuted for such activities.
The latest example of this type of violation in Serbia comes from the northern municipality of Sid, which published the personal data of a citizen confirmed as infected with COVID-19. That person’s initials, age, address and workplace were all published on the municipal website.
False information about the virus is spread each day in the Balkans. In a region with poor media literacy, citizens are deceived in the most senseless way at a time when they are most vulnerable. Journalists and individuals who try to report on the under-reported cases are portrayed as enemies of the fight against the virus.
The health of each person is, and must be, our priority at this time – but that should not mean it has to be constantly confronted with the health of our freedoms.
For more information and the latest updates on arbitrary arrests, emergency legislation to combat the COVID-19 outbreak, surveillance, phone tapping, privacy breaches and other digital rights violations, visit the Digital Rights in the Time of COVID-19 page on BIRN’s Investigative Resource Desk.
Citing the fight against COVID-19, authorities in a number of Central and Eastern European countries have extended the amount of time state bodies have to respond to freedom of information, FOI, requests, part of what media watchdogs say is a worrying crackdown on press freedom since the onset of the pandemic.
Media regulations across the region have been tightened under states of emergency and journalists have been arrested on accusations of spreading misinformation concerning the response of authorities to the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Some countries have sought to centralise the dissemination of official information and banned certain media from regular briefings.
FOI requests, a vital tool for journalists, have also fallen victim to the virus response; in Moldova, public officials have been allowed to decide alone whether or not to respond, while in Serbia, officials can refuse to respond to questions that are not related to the pandemic. In some cases, state bodies have been told they can delay responding until after a state of emergency has been lifted.
The measures have come in for criticism from rights organisations and raised suspicion that governments are trying to avoid public scrutiny of their response to the pandemic, which in many countries has been slow, chaotic and hampered by shortages of protective equipment for frontline medical staff.
Governments have an obligation to “ensure that measures to combat disinformation are necessary, proportionate and subject to regular oversight,” Dunja Mijatovic, human rights commissioner at the Council of Europe said on Friday.
Describing access to information as a “collateral victim” of government responses, Mijatovic said: “Despite the fact that timely information is essential for the public to understand the danger and adopt measures at a personal level to protect themselves, the filtering of information and delays in responses to freedom of information requests have been observed in several member states.”
Her statement followed a letter to the CoE from ten rights organisations that promote press freedoms and freedom of speech, among them Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists, urging the 47-member body to take urgent measures against countries they accused of exploiting the crisis to curb essential freedoms.
Deadlines extended in Romania and Moldova
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis. Photo: EPA-EFE/ROBERT GHEMENT.
In European Union member Romania, President Klaus Iohannis signed a decree on March 16 declaring a 30-day state of emergency, which included a provision doubling the amount of time state institutions have to answer FOI requests.
Media outlets including Dela0.ro have reported that several local branches Health Ministry departments have cited the fight against COVID-19 in refusing to provide information to journalists or deferred questions to the communications office created by the Interior Ministry to centralise information about the crisis.
Likewise in neighbouring Moldova, authorities on Friday tripled the amount of time public bodies have to respond to FOI requests, from 15 days to 45. Media researcher and Independent Press Association, API, journalist Mariana Jacot told BIRN that when she had asked for public information from the Health Ministry she was told that ministry officials have more important things to deal with.
FOI right postponed in Serbia
In Serbia, the government has also extended the deadlines for state institutions to respond to a range of requests, including FOI requests to which institutions now have 30 days to respond once the state of emergency in the country is lifted.
Last week, for example, the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications told BIRN it would respond to an FOI request submitted by BIRN, “within the legal deadlines upon the termination of the state of emergency.”
Serbia’s Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, Milan Marinovic, welcomed the government’s measure in a statement on March 25.
Marinovic, who was nominated to the post last year by the ruling Serbian Progressive Party of President Aleksandar Vucic, said the move addressed a “number of concerns regarding the course and the calculation of deadlines during a state of emergency.”
His predecessor, however, questioned the way in which the measure was adopted.
“The government can adopt that regulation only when the parliament cannot meet due to objective reasons,” Rodoljub Sabic told BIRN. “The notion that parliament sessions cannot be held now is completely unsustainable, it is complete legal nonsense.”
The Serbian parliament was dissolved on March 15 after the government banned all gatherings of more than 50 people.
Referring to the trade ministry’s response to the BIRN FOI request, Sabic said: “Your right has practically been postponed.”
“Of course they can answer you. The regulation does not ban it, it only extends the deadlines. If they want, they can answer you.”
“Unfortunately, the regulation puts them in a position where they don’t have to answer the request. They can postpone your right until the state of emergency is over,” he said. “It all comes down to that body’s goodwill.”
Public debate in Montenegro amid pandemic
Delia Matilde Ferreira Rubio, chair of the board of directors of Transparency International. Photo: EPA-EFE/ALESSANDRO DELLA VALLE.
In Montenegro, rights groups have deplored a decision by the government to press ahead with public consultation on proposed amendments to the country’s law on access to information despite the restrictions imposed on public life amid the pandemic.
On March 31, civil society organisations and journalists called for a postponement, arguing that the lockdown had made participatory debate impossible.
The following day, the chair of Transparency International, Delia Ferreira Rubio, warned that any non-emergency legislative measure that requires public consultation should be postponed until full, active participation can be guaranteed.
Nevertheless, the Ministry of Public Administration called for written comments on the amendments to be submitted via the ministry’s official e-mail address by April 13.
The non-governmental Institute Alternative, which promotes good governance and democracy in Montenegro, urged the ministry to wait until the pandemic had passed.
“There is no reason to rush and have a bad discussion during the pandemic,” Stevo Muk said in a press release on April 3. “Especially since neither the government nor the parliament is functioning in a regular way.”
This article was changed on April 7 to amend the time Moldovan authorities have to respond to FOI requests.
Singling out Hungary, Slovenia and the Czech Republic as especially worrying examples, ten human rights organisations including Index on Censorship and Reporters Without Borders have written to the Council of Europe and other official bodies, urging them to address the danger of governments misusing the coronavirus crisis to pursue authoritarian policies.
“Several governments across Europe are already using the pandemic to claim extraordinary powers that can undermine democratic institutions, including the free press,” the organisations said. “We believe that some Council of Europe Member States are at risk of derogating from the European Convention on Human Rights,” they noted.
Among the concerns expressed in the letter is an emergency law that aims to tackle false information by penalties of up to five years in jail, limits to press conferences introduced in several countries and an outright ban on them in Slovenia and the Czech Republic. “Such measures must not be allowed to restrict media scrutiny of governments,” the ten organisations say.
They say governments across the world have pushed the boundaries of what they are allowed to do during the COVID-19 crisis, adopting measures including the almost unchecked use of private data collected by mobile phone networks and, in some cases, use of facial recognition surveillance systems that were allegedly conceived before the crisis to tackle dissident activity.
“Our organisations are concerned about the effects of enhanced surveillance measures introduced to monitor the spread of the virus,” the letter said.
“While we recognise the potential benefits in terms of combating the spread of the virus, the use of surveillance must have proper oversight and be clearly limited to tackling the pandemic,” it added.
The letter has been signed by ARTICLE 19, the Association of European Journalists, AEJ, the Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, ECPMF, the European Federation of Journalists, EFJ, the Free Press Unlimited, FPU, Index on Censorship, the International Federation of Journalists, IFJ, International Press Institute, IPI and Reporters Without Borders, RSF.
The Centre for Independent Journalism, CJI, an NGO that promotes media freedom and good practices in journalism, has raised concern that provisions enacted as part of the state of emergency to combat the spread of the coronavirus in Romania could hamper journalists’ ability to inform the public.
“The most worrying aspect of all this is, from my perspective, the limitations to the access to information of public interest,” Cristina Lupu, executive director of the CJI, told BIRN.
“The lack of transparency of the authorities is a very bad sign and the biggest problem our media is confronting now,” said Lupu, adding that this has negative consequences for the public “who don’t have access to information on time”.
Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis declared a state of emergency across the country on March 16.
The measure, which will be in force for 30 days and can be extended with the approval of parliament, has raised concerns that it might be used to keep information secret.
One of its provisions gives the government power to remove from the public arena information considered to be false, a prerogative that authorities have used in at least three time since March 16.
Although the news sites and articles that were targeted were clearly false, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE, warned on Monday about the emergency powers “the removal of reports and entire websites, without providing appeal or redress mechanisms”.
“I share the preoccupation of the Romanian authorities to combat the dissemination of false information related to the health crisis,” the OSCE’s media freedom representative, Harlem Desir, said in a statement.
“However, at the same time, I want to recall the importance of ensuring the free flow of information, which is a key component for providing the public with information on the vital measures needed to contain the virus, as well as the respect for the right of the media to report on the pandemic and governmental policies,” he added.
The OSCE warned of the risk posed by the fact that the government can decide what is fake news and what is legitimate reporting, and that the special extended powers granted under the state of emergency could be used to unduly restrict the work of journalists.
The CJI has started a project called The Newsroom Diary to allow journalists to air “frustrations” about working under the state of emergency.
The lack of responses from official institutions is one of the most common challenges reported in the diary, which is published daily on the CIJ Facebook page. The time in which institutions are obliged to answer requests from journalists has doubled under the state of emergency.
BIRN and SHARE Foundation are bringing you the latest updates and cases of arbitrary arrests, surveillance, phone tapping, privacy breaches and other digital rights violations as countries of Central and Southeast Europe impose emergency legislation to combat the COVID-19 outbreak.
The official data makes for uncomfortable reading: central bank reserves down 11 billion euros over three years, 150 per cent knocked off the value of the lira, inflation at nearly 12 per cent, unemployment roughly 13 per cent and output contracting.
Yet some observers of the Turkish economy – rocked since 2016 by repeated political crises, strained relations with the West and military adventures in the Middle East – say the reality may be even worse.
“Economists are becoming increasingly suspicious about the economic data of the Turkish government,” said Caner Gerek, professor of economics at Kirklareli University near Turkey’s northwestern border with Bulgaria.
“The official numbers do not match the facts on the ground and in our lives.”
The Turkish Statistical Agency, TurkStat, and the Finance Ministry under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law, Berat Albayrak, are in charge of the data, “but the way the data is gathered and analysed is becoming very suspicious,” said Gerek.
Lessons from Greece
A seller writes new prices at a local bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey. Photo: EPA-EFE/ERDEM SAHIN
Take inflation: shortly after TurkStat reported record high inflation in 2018, the agency’s head, Enver Tasti, was dismissed. Under his successor, the official rate fell significantly to 13 per cent.
Yet Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at John Hopkins University, said last year that the real figure was over 43 per cent.
The prices of the main commodities alone rose more than 30 per cent last year; electricity and gas were up 32 per cent and prices of food in supermarkets soared 50 per cent.
Enes Ozkan, an economist at the University of Istanbul, said Turkey would be wise to learn from the mistakes of neighbouring Greece, which plunged into crisis in 2010 when it revealed a massive budget shortfall. The European Union criticised “severe irregularities” in Greek accounting.
“The Greek economy is still recovering and Turkey must take lessons from it,” Ozkan told BIRN.
“Unfortunately, government officials at every level are manipulating the economic data and using it for their own political propaganda.”
Ibrahim Kahveci, an economics columnist at the Turkish daily Karar, said there had been a significant drop in consumer spending and that it did not match the government’s official data on inflation.
“Perhaps TurkStat official do not believe that economist can cross check the data,” Kahveci wrote.
According to TurkStat, the number of unemployed Turks increased by 817,000 between September 2018 and September 2019 to a total of 4.56 million. The unemployment rate rose 2.4 per cent to 13.8 per cent; even worse among the young, at 26.1 per cent.
But again, experts believe that official figures downplay the problem given the extent of the economy’s contraction.
The economy contracted 2.6 in Q1 2019 and 1.5 per cent in Q2. There was a slight recovery in Q3, but the economy remains in recession and the downward trend is expected to continue in 2020.
According to Deutsche Welle Turkish, almost 900 companies, including a number of Turkish industrial giants, filed for bankruptcy in 2019 alone. More than 2,000 have done so in the past two years, according to the January report.
Critics have also picked up on the method of measuring unemployment: according to TurkStat, 630,000 women who were previously counted as part of the labour force opted to stay at home in 2019, excluding them from unemployment figures.
Only in December 2019, 145,000 women left the labour force, leading to questions from experts and opposition parties. The number of people who have ceased actively seeking work also increased to 668,000, again removing them from the unemployment rate.
Faik Oztrak, deputy leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party told a news conference in January that the data made no sense.
‘If you can’t measure it…’
Gerek, the economics professor, also questioned the data on Turkish Central Bank reserves, which were used to defend the lira. Gerek cited “serious economists” suggesting reserves had hit “a very low level”.
A poll conducted by AREA Research Company found that 61.6 per cent of Turks believe the state of the economy will worsen further in 2020, potentially putting further pressure on Erdogan after the loss of Istanbul and other cities to the opposition in local elections last year.
Ozkan said trust was key to a healthy economy, but that the gap between the official data and the facts on the ground was widening.
“The current manipulation of the data causes irrevocable damage to the Turkish economy,” he said.
“You can escape from facts but you cannot escape from its consequences.”
“Even people who never follow any economic data now do not trust the data of the Turkish government.”
“As Lord Kelvin said, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it,” Ozkan said, referring to the 19th century Scottish mathematician and physicist William Thomson.
“If you measure the deteriorating figures wrong it means that you will also apply the wrong policies to recover.”
Turkey restored the access to Wikipedia after blocking its content for more than two and a half years.
This latest development follows a 26 December 2019 ruling by the Constitutional Court of Turkey that the block imposed by the Turkish government was unconstitutional. Earlier on Thursday, the Turkish Constitutional Court made the full text of that ruling available to the public, and shortly after, Wikipedia Foundation received reports that access was restored to the website.
“We are thrilled to be
reunited with the people of Turkey,” said Katherine Maher, Executive Director
of the Wikimedia Foundation. “At Wikimedia we are committed to protecting
everyone’s fundamental right to access information. We are excited to share
this important moment with our Turkish contributor community on behalf of
knowledge-seekers everywhere.”
Wikipedia filed a petition also before the European Court of Human
Rights in spring of last year, and in July, the Court granted the case priority status.
Wikipedia is a global free knowledge resource written and edited
by people around the world.
More than 85 percent of the articles on Wikipedia are in languages
other than English, which includes the Turkish Wikipedia’s more than 335,000
articles, written by Turkish-speaking volunteers for Turkish-speaking people.
Between January 2017 and June 2019, BIRN journalists submitted 854 official requests to access public documents in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. With the aid of the information gained from these requests, BIRN produced numerous investigative pieces and so exposed wrongdoing by governments, companies and powerful individuals.
On the basis of the submitted FOI requests, BIRN has also published an in-depth analysis of institutions’ openness to FOI requests across the countries of the Western Balkans. This shows that while Freedom of Information laws in the region are among the most liberal in Europe on paper, implementation of these laws is well below European standards.
Implementation also varies between the Western Balkan countries themselves. Some countries are showing an improvement, for example, by public institutions publishing large amounts of data and documents.
Others, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, lag behind. It is now the only country in the Balkans that does not even offer access to public records in electronic form. In some other countries, like Montenegro and Serbia, there has been a decline in implementation, as a result of legislative changes and political pressure.
Of the 854 official requests that BIRN submitted to access public documents, less than half of them, 408, were actually approved; 224 were partially approved, meaning the institutions provided only technical information, while 221 requests were either rejected or no answer at all was received, despite repeated follow-ups from the journalists.
Looking at the ratio between requests that were submitted and answered positively, in Albania the score was highest, at 61 per cent. It was followed by Kosovo, at 56 per cent. In Serbia, institutions provided the requested information in 40 per cent of the cases, while in North Macedonia the figure was 33 per cent. The worst response rate was in Bosnia, where institutions replied to only 25 per cent of requests sent.
For many journalists in the Western Balkans, where independent media are often under attack and pressure, Freedom of Information laws are often an important pillar of their own freedom, and are sometimes the only way to obtain information.
In recent years, however, there has been a certain tendency among institutions to close the information door and experiment with new ways to deny public information, especially to journalists, who have been traditionally the most frequent users of these laws.
To withhold information, institutions often either ignore requests or mark the requested information as classified.
In many cases, BIRN journalists have been forced to file complaints in order to get the data they want, or a decision on their request. This process often lasts long, disrupts journalists’ daily activities and prolongs the whole investigative process, which can end up using outdated data.
In Kosovo, BIRN journalists submitted the majority of their 337 requests to municipalities, ministries, the Telecom Company, the Prosecutorial Council, Judicial Council, the President’s Office, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Procurement Review Body. Of these, 188 were approved, 27 were partially answered and 122 were rejected.
BIRN Kosovo repeatedly submitted complaints about denial of access to public documents. In all cases, the Ombudsman asked the relevant institutions to grant access. But only 45 per cent of these requests resulted in BIRN gaining access to the requested documents. Another 20 per cent of requests resulted in BIRN gaining partial access. The remaining 35 per cent is still pending.
In North Macedonia, BIRN submitted 233 information requests, of which just over a third were approved.
While most countries in the region, such as Serbia, Albania and North Macedonia, have liberal Freedom of Information laws, at least on paper, there is a worrying trend in Montenegro, where latest changes to the law allow the head of an institution to decide which information shall be marked “classified”. This change has been widely criticized, as it contains a series of exclusions that are not in line with international standards or the country’s own constitution.
In Albania, meanwhile, a new law includes a number of novel concepts, including the possibility of re-classifying secret documents, the release of partial information and the use of information technology to make information held by public institutions more available to the public.
In Serbia, BIRN submitted 95 requests. Of these, 13 were fully answered, 25 were partially answered and 20 were rejected or no answer was received. Another 37 requests were still pending by the time of publication. Although the legal deadline for institutions in Serbia to respond to such requests is 15 days, in some institutions, like the Interior Ministry, the average response timeframe is a month or longer.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, BIRN filed 12 requests and it took regular follow-ups and reminders before the authorities ever responded, even though, as in Serbia, the legal deadline to respond is 15 days. In reality, it takes a month or more.
Looking at the annual reports of regional Commissioners, Serbia’s received the highest number of complaints, 64 per cent, during 2018. Albania came next, with 13 per cent, followed by North Macedonia, on 10 per cent and Montenegro, with 7 per cent. The lowest number of complaints reported by the Ombudsperson’s Office was in Bosnia and Herzegovina – 5 per cent – and in Kosovo, only 1 per cent.
BIRN’s analysis also showed that local government institutions are more responsive to requests for information while central government institutions are more likely to postpone decisions and eventually reject journalists’ requests. Possible reasons for this could be the nature and exclusivity of the information that these institutions possess.
The lowest positive response that BIRN journalists had, in term of individual institutions in the region, was with the Civil Aviation Authority in Albania, the Ministry of Foreign Trade in Bosnia, the Post in Kosovo and the Interior Ministry in Serbia.
As part of BIRN’s drive for openness, it has established a free, user-friendly, searchable online library of public documents and scraped database, called BIRN Source. To increase access to open data for journalists, in January 2020 BIRN will also launch a new online platform, the BIRN Investigative Resource Desk, BIRD, which will provide a digital space and user-friendly tools for better and stronger investigative journalism.
BIRD will provide journalists with various types of assistance, including a set of useful tools and information in one place related to freedom of information, data access and protection, cybersecurity and open-source datasets.
Are you a professional journalist or a media worker looking for an easily searchable and comprehensive database and interested in safely (re)connecting with more than thousands of colleagues from Southeastern and Central Europe?
We created BIRD Community, a place where you can have it all!
