For more complete control of power and transparency in decision-making, legislation is enacted according to which citizens will have access to public documents in order to investigate the procedures followed by the competent state departments to make a relevant decision.
In fact, those of the competent officials who do not allow access or have made a disappearance or alteration of a file will be intervened by the Commissioner of Personal Data, who will also be called Information, and will impose fines of up to 5 thousand Euros, while in cases where the denial continues in criminal investigation and possibly in prison.
The government bill is an innovation and was missing from the legal quiver of the citizens, pointed out the competent Minister of Justice Ionas Nikolaou who presented it to the Legal Committee as well as its President Georgios Georgiou and AKEL MP Aristos Damianou.
Mr. Nikolaou pointed out that there will be exceptions to free access to documents relating to national security, court decisions and parliamentary work, and it is up to the authorities to decide whether they can be granted.
The bill under discussion was said by the Minister. Justice will contribute to transparency and the fight against corruption and was done following suggestions and international organizations. The aim is to ensure a balance between knowledge and the public interest.
Jonah: Expands the institution of Democracy
In today's statements after the end of the session of the Legal Committee of the Parliament, Mr. Nikolaou said that this is a bill that expands the institution of democracy in our country, as well as the rights of the citizen so that he can have guaranteed general right of access to public documents, which did not exist and was not recognized until today.
"Until today, what the citizen was entitled to was access to documents concerning him. Today, however, it can with this possibility have a general right of access to any document which may have information and not fall within those which are considered to be exempt documents. This is an innovation which, in fact, has been envisaged since 2009 in the agreement we have signed with the United Nations and which provides for access to public documents. "It was not an obligation arising from the contract, but it is an innovation that comes to complement rights that are recognized to the citizen," he added.
In addition, continued Mr. Nikolaou, this is also a regulation that comes in line with a recommendation submitted to us by Greco of the Council of Europe on issues of transparency and the fight against corruption.
"A process that allows the citizen through this access and information to exercise the necessary control over the exercise of public authority. In this way, that is, in essence, it will be possible to control power, the way in which it is exercised. To be able, in essence, to check whether there is transparency in a process that has been followed or whether any issues related to corruption still arise, ie the citizen will be able to gather the required information on the basis of his own information in a way that he can to exercise control.
The Minister of Justice stated that they have studied similar laws of other countries.
It was a difficult and persistent task which we tried in the best possible way to perform these procedures in a clear way, imposing the appropriate control procedures on the way in which the public authority can and is required to respond to the request of the citizen, he noted.
The responsibility will be taken over by the Commissioner of Personal Data as Commissioner of Information, said Mr. Nikolaou, explaining that he will have this responsibility, in addition to the responsibility he has today as Commissioner of Personal Data.
Right to information
Asked to clarify what exactly the citizen can do, Mr. Nikolaou clarified that each public authority will publish documents that are in its possession and about which the citizen has the right to information.
Source: onlycy.com