Kosovo with a low level of implementation of the law on access to public documents

Prishtina, September 28, 2012 – September 28 is the International Day (informal) of the right to know or access to official information. The international right to know began on 28 September 2002. On this day, organizations around the world work together to promote the right of access to official information by strengthening transparency and accountability. Mexhide Demolli Nimani, Media Office Coordinator stated that Movement FOL has traditionally respected this date with different activities. “This year, FOL , in order to analyse the level of implementation of the law on access to public documents, in September began the campaign” Accountability Test “. During this campaign, FOL has communicated directly with citizens in the 8 municipalities of Kosovo, providing assistance to interested citizens to make requests for access to public documents, “said Demolli Nimani.

According to her, part of this campaign was a non-standardized survey, the purpose of which was to collect information on citizens’ experience regarding the use of public services, ie access to public documents at central and local level institutions.

Meanwhile Jetmira Bajrami, coordinator at Movement FOL, said that the non-standardized survey includes 274 citizens. “Although the majority of respondents (53.6%) answered that they know of the existence of the Law on Access to Public Documents, the level of knowledge about the content of the law is extremely deficient,” said Bajrami.

The survey findings show that the level of interest of citizens to make requests for access to public documents is very low. “Only 22.2% of them stated that they had made such requests to institutions, while 77.3% stated that they have never made such requests. Most of these requests are made at the municipal level: 98.3% of people stated that they had made the requests in their municipalities, and only 1.6% of them had applied to the central level. About 60.6% of these requests that were made by the citizens of Kosovo never received a response from the institutions, compared with 39.3% of the cases that have received a response. In these responses, 58.3% of the cases were positive response, 8.3% were negative and 33.3% of cases, institutions have allowed partial access.
In addition to the implementation of the survey, Mexhide Demolli Nimani said that during this campaign were made 123 requests for access to public information in accordance with the Law on Access to Public Documents. “The number of requests received by the municipalities of Kosovo is: Mitrovica-19, Prizren-15, Gjakova-14, Podujeva-15, Ferizaj-15, Gjilan-15, Kamenicë-15, Peja-14, the Ministry of Education, Science and technology – 1, “. For further details see: http://levizjafol.org/images/uploads/files/Raporti_Testi_i_Pergjegjshmerise-2.pdf

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