“Serious shortfalls’ exist in the latest annual report about access to public information in Macedonia, according to Foundation Open Society, which has called on government leaders to reject the report.
The report by the Commission for Protection of the Right to Free Access to Public Information, covering 2012, contains misinformation, the group charged in an April 10 letter to the president of Parliament and other parliamentary officials.
The seven-year-old Law on Free Access to Public Information is being inadequately amd inefficiently enforced, the group said.
The annual report (in Macedonian) lacks recommendations to address the high number of cases where “administration’s silence” prevents access to information. The group says 76.5 percent of all appeals to the commission are based on “administrative silence.”
The number of appeals has increased, from 409 in 2012 to 1,225 in 2012, according to the group, which objects to the commissioner’s characterization of the increase as “normal.” The commission is inefficient, the group says, and has also failed to promote the act.
The letter signed by Vladimir Milcin, Executive Director, asks that the Committee on Political System and Inter-Ethnic Relations recommends that Parliament not adopt the report.
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