The Center for Quality Journalism sent 18 official requests for information to central and local institutions and received only seven complete responses. About half of the requests were ignored, receiving no response.
Author: Geri Emiri
Lorin Kadiu, a journalist at the Center for Quality Journalism, has been waiting for three months for the Municipality of Tirana to respond to a request for information, although the institution has confirmed that it has received his questions.
"My questions are related to the standards of the 25 kindergartens reconstructed within the initiative "Adopt a garden", - said the journalist, who sent the request on October 31, 2017.
Waiting until oblivion seems to be happening more and more, whenever information is requested from central and local institutions.
In 2017 alone, it is reported that 541 citizens, journalists or organizations complained to the Commissioner for the Right to Information about not receiving a response from the institution where they requested information. Many others simply give up on the process if they do not receive a response within the official waiting time.
The right to be informed is one of the basic rights in a democratic society, based on the principle that citizens have the right to request materials and information that are owned by public authorities.
In Albania, the right to be informed about documents held by public authorities has been regulated by law since 1999, but in practice it has been difficult to implement.
After several years of efforts by civil society, the Parliament of Albania adopted in September 2014 a new, improved law on obtaining information, which, among other things, shortened to 10 working days the time in which an institution responded to a citizen or journalist for his request.
With the old law, the deadlines were extended, where the public authority had 15 days to respond, whether or not to accept the request for information and, when the response was positive, it had to be returned to the interested party within 40 days. In total it took about two months to get an official answer.
With the 2014 law, any citizen can fill in the information request form and send it via email or post to the public authority, without giving the reasons why they are requesting the information.
To ensure the implementation of this law, the institution of the Commissioner for the Right to Information and Protection of Personal Data was created, where the commissioner himself reports to the Assembly or the parliamentary committees at least once a year or whenever requested by them.
One of the basic functions is the commitment of this institution in the implementation of the law, imposing sanctions, in case it finds a violation.
But, despite all the advanced legislation, its respect and implementation by the institutions leaves much to be desired. From a test that the center carried out for the second year in a row, it was found that the institutions at the central and local level do not all respect the law on the Right to Information.
Out of 18 requests for information that were sent in 2017 by the center's journalists to various institutions, it turned out that seven responses were returned within the official deadline and complete, three responses were returned within the official deadline, but incomplete and eight of the information requests , although about three months have passed, they still have not received a response.
From the testing of the law on the Right to Information in 2016, it was found that out of 12 requests, five of them did not receive any response, while in three cases the response was incomplete.
From the data of the Commissioner for the Right to Information, it appears that during 2017, 541 complaints were filed and only four heads of institutions and three coordinators were fined for the right to information.
A number that is many times smaller compared to the complaints filed with this institution by people who claim that their right to access official documents has been restricted.
After the June 2017 elections, the Rama 2 government reshuffled into a smaller cabinet, thus merging several ministries and leaving 11 in total. "The defects of the first mandate, but also the challenges of this mandate, show that we need a smaller and more cooperative government", Rama said in August of last year.
But, on the other hand, the merger of some of the ministries has led to a hazy situation regarding their functions, bringing difficulties to journalists and citizens regarding the determination of the institution that has the competence to respond to their request for information.
Brendon Xhavara, a journalist at the center, asked for information about the Action Plan of the Roma and Egyptian Community 2016-2020, but was faced with the ambiguity of which minister was responsible for the implementation of this plan after their restructuring.
"With the merger of the Ministry of Social Welfare and the Ministry of Health, I was unclear and uninformed about which institution will implement this plan", Xhavara said.
The creation of new websites for the ministries and the non-publication of transparency programs in time, which are an obligation according to the Right to Information law, have also brought problems in finding the contacts of the coordinators for the right to information in the relevant institutions.
In the end, from the three institutions Xhavara addressed, the Ministry of Finance and Economy and the Ministry of Health and Social Protection responded.
While the institution that created this situation, the Prime Minister's Office, did not return any response, violating the law on the Right to Information, which has a deadline of 10 working days for its return.
