In the 2007 year, the Commission for Protection of the Right to Free Access to Public Information as a second degree organ received 330 complaints submitted by the applicants for information. 18 were submitted in January, 5 in February, 7 in March, 17 in April, 34 in May, 49 in June, 32 in July, 7 in August, 8 in September, 26 in October, 104 in November and 23 in December.
Alarming is the fact that 205 of the complaints were submitted as a result of the silence of administration, and the other 125 were submitted due to missing the deadline for answering the requests, or because incomplete or partial answers.
Part of the complaints were submitted as a result of lack of coordination between the applicants and their lawyers. Example: the information holder delivered the requested information to the applicants, but the applicants did not inform their lawyers and vice versa. There are cases when the applicant that requested a photocopy of information did not pick up the delivery in the post office and the information was then returned to the sender.
The Commission took in consideration the opinions of the domestic and the foreign experts in the process of making the decisions on the submitted complaints. The Commission’s leading ground was the aspect that the free access to public information should be the leading principle in the overall communication between the information holders and the citizens – applicants for information.
