A statement by
Transparency Azerbaijan
On the draft law "On freedom of information"
The
right to know what is going on in the country and in the world is
one of the rights granted to every Azerbaijani by the country's constitution
and international human rights conventions.
The transparency of state administration and every person's access to public
information gives the public the opportunity to have the right idea of the
essence of administration and assess to
it.
In order to increase the effectiveness of the work of all structures carrying
out public functions, especially state bodies, to reduce the risk of corruption
and increase the people's confidence in these structures, the transparency of
their activities and information is extremely important.
Democracy and progress are impossible without the freedom of information.
We state with a great feeling of concern that the draft law "On freedom of
information", which has already been adopted by the Milli Majlis of the
Azerbaijani Republic in its first reading, is far from ensuring the transparency
of state bodies.
It must be noted with regret that the draft law contains a number of fundamental
shortcomings, and misinterpretes some very important ideas. This
might create serious problems and considerably reduce
effectiveness of the law when
applied. The fact that the bill does not indicate that this law shall be
given a priority in the sphere of
the freedom of public information creates conditions for other laws to
supercede and thus violate its provisions.
The draft law cannot guarantee the most important principles of freedom of
information - the maximum openness of information, easy and quick access to
information and support for transparent administration. The bill does not cover
in full public information and the circle of people who possess this
information, and does not define a precise and comprehensive list of information
that has to be disclosed to the public by state bodies and methods of disclosing
and disseminating this information in a timely fashion, and methods of
facilitating access threto.
It is no use placing the whole burden of accessing information through queries,
and it serves to keep state bodies and other structures carrying out public
functions closed. From this point of view, the bill is not different from the
1998 law "On freedom of information" which is useless in terms of
disclosing public information.
In line with present-day requirements, every entity that possesses information
should definitely place on the Internet the information it is entitled to
disclose to the public along with other means (the press, television, radio,
etc.).
The draft law creates broad opportunities for the entities that possess
information to avoid accepting information queries. Thus, state bodies can
refuse to disclose information on the basis of their own opinion that this or
other information can constitute a threat to the country's independence,
security and territorial integrity. Unfortunately, these opportunities are not
the only ones.
The draft law contains problems of concern that those who possess information
might avoid disseminating information, oversee the laws that reduce access to
information and that the form, authorities, independence and professionalism of
a body that will be examining complaints about refusal to issue information
might not be guaranteed. If these problems are not solved, this entity will
remain an ineffective entity that will not be able to guarantee freedom of
information.
Freedom of information means transparency. There is a saying that secrecy
disrupts friendship. State bodies working for citizens should be transparent.
Openness would increase the people's confidence in state bodies, officials and
public institutions and would strengthen the people's support for the work of
the government.
We believe that in order to achieve transparency of the state machinery, which
will be able to eliminate corruption and ineffective administration in
public institutions and guarantee access to public information, it is necessary
to put up the bill for public debate and draw it up again on the basis of
proposals from the institutions of the civic society.