More than 30 NGO´s, gathered within the coalition “Public has a right to know” made an official appeal today to the Croatian Parliament requesting the modification of the new Draft Data Secrecy Law, finding it to be in sharp contrast to the Freedom of Information Act. (07-APR-06)
Written by HRH Zagreb / Goran Milakovic.
As pointed out in the announcement submitted on behalf of the Coalition by the Croatian Helsinki Committte, the provisions of the Draft Data Secrecy Law are contrary to the recently adopted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), whose adoption and implementation was one of the key preconditions for declaring candidacy for the European Union. Moreover, as highlighted in the announcement, the new Draft Law is contrary to the Croatian Constitution, as well as to the Recommendation of the Council of Europe 2002(R).
More secrecy?
Most controversial parts of the Law are contained in Articles 9. and 16. which define levels of data secrecy without explanation of criteria under which data is clasified as secret or confidential. Thus, Article 9. defines that all data whose unauthorized disclosure could harm efficiency and performance of public bodies should be confidential.
-The basic principle public bodies should adhere to in their work is openness and transparency. However, instead of narrowing it according to the FOIA, this Law stipulates secrecy and undermines international standards on public right to know, said Milena Gogic, FOIA project manager from CHC.
Council of Europe ignored
Furthermore, according to the Article 16., if one part of the document is classified as secret, the whole document is secret. This is however opposite to the Principle VII of the Recommendation of the Council of Europe 2002(R), which clearly says that the rest of the document should be made public if only one part is classified as secret. The view of the Coalition is that these provisions will neutralize the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act.
Along with these efforts, the Coalition appealed to the parliamentarians to correct the shortcomings of the Freedom of Information Act as well, in compliance with the Comments of the Council of Europe. For that purpose, the Coalition enclosed it´s own proposal regarding modifications of the FOIA, developed by the group of experts from the Faculty of Law at the University of Zagreb.
