MANS is monitoring implementation of Freedom of Information Law (FOI Law) through a wide-ranging use of legal and other mechanisms including strategic litigation and advanced monitoring software, but also advocacy campaigns based upon concrete cases and mobilization of citizens.
In 2012, MANS achieved a certain milestone in its FOI Law monitoring experience – we have submitted a 50 000th request for free access to information, and we are, to the best of our knowledge, an organization with the most individually submitted requests in the Europe. Since adoption of the first law in late 2005, MANS also submitted over 6,000 appeals and over 8,000 complaints in front of the Administrative Court, with over 80% of judicial verdicts in our favour.
In 2012, we have submitted over 7.000 requests for information and received 48% of all requested documents. Additionally, MANS submitted over 1.300 appeals to supervisory institutions. On average, supervisory institutions acted in more than 80% of cases and made over 70% of all the decisions in our favor. Furthermore, we have submitted over 900 cases to the Administrative Court, with 90% of favorable court’s decisions.
MANS initiated over 100 procedures in front of the Protector of Human Rights – Ombudsman for the cases where institutions did not comply with Administrative Court verdicts, with over 95% of them being successfully resolved. This makes one fifth of all human rights violations reported to the Ombudsman during last year.
We have developed good practices in several areas, by strategically using FOI by all MANS programs – for investigations, in providing free legal aid and mobilizing communities and for monitoring implementation of other laws and policies.
Due to our persistent litigation and advocacy all judicial verdicts are now publicly available whether through internet or upon FOI request even though those were previously declared secret even by the Supreme Court of Montenegro. We have also managed to obtain data on state deposits, payment of taxes for construction which were previously declared secret, but also some documents related to privatization, financial statements of companies etc.
Some good practices were related to decreasing costs for accessing information. For example the Real estate administration decided to charge 50 euro for each access to cadastre property sheet but upon our appeal, Ministry of Finance brought decision in favor of transparency.
MANS is continuously providing citizens and journalists with free legal aid in accessing information and in this year we have managed to mobilize several hundreds of citizens to submit requests for information on their own, which is a large breakthrough compared to previous years, when citizens feared to address institutions with their requests and preferred to anonymously use MANS services.
During 2012, we have conducted an extensive public campaign to promote right to information. We have organized over 70 promotional and awareness raising events throughout the country and distributed over 30 000 promotional leaflets with templates for requests for information to be used by citizens. Over 300 requests for information were submitted on site by citizens and countless requests that were independently sent by citizens in subsequent days. On all occasions MANS distributed a wide range of campaign materials.
MANS maintained an on-line system for submitting requests for information, used by more than 200 people.9 Citizens are encouraged to submit requests using a simple fill-in form. After submitting a request, they receive an e-mail that informs them of actions that are taken by our team and are provided with a response as soon as it becomes available which are also accessible on our web site10.
We were also organizing meetings, trainings, and providing legal assistance to over 30 NGOs, journalists and Trade Union members, from Freedom of Information Network established in the previous year.
In July 2012, MANS organized Round table on Implementation of the FOI Law in areas prone to corruption gathering representatives of public institutions, academics, NGOs and trade unions. The round table discussion was followed with set of workshops on FOI in privatization, environment and spatial planning and development. On the bases of these, through joint work of NGOs and trade unions, number of citizens and workers submitted FOI requests in these areas11.
On the basis of information gathered through monitoring, we have developed bilingual Report on the implementation of the FOI Law with recommendations for its improvement and two bilingual Reports on the transparency levels of public institutions.
We have managed to incorporate number of these recommendations into the new FOI Law which will be in force from mid February 2013. The most significant changes are introduction of new supervisory body for all institutions and new penalty system.
The Government adopted an Open Government Partnership (OGP) Action Plan, following MANS initiative and participation in working group. We managed incorporate several major commitments in the OGP Action Plan: adoption of Law on Whistleblowers, professionalization of Commission for Prevention of Conflict of Interests and expansion of Privatization and Capital Investment Council with one NGO member.
