On July 2, 2008, in the Hotel “Holiday Inn” in Skopje a workshop on the experiences from the implementation of the Law on Free Access to Public Information took place, organized by the Commission for FAPI. The President of the Commission, Janko Nikolovski, addressed the participants and expressed his gratitude to the Ambassador of Great Britain in the Republic of Macedonia, Andrew Key, with who supported the workshop and a part of the large project “Technical Help and Assistance for Rising of the Awareness and for Giving Support to the Application of the Law on Free Access to Public Information”, and to the Minister of Justice of the Republic of Macedonia, Mihajlo Manevski, in whose political mandate the application of the Law on FAPI begun.
Nikolovski stressed that the Law on FAPI is a schoolbook of freedom and democracy in the Republic of Macedonia. “The right to free access to public documents, as a precise instrument is aimed towards the ideals – efficient administration and combat against corruption – two of the targets that bring us closer to the wanted European standards”, said Nikolovski.
Looking back to the project realized in cooperation with the Macedonian Centre for Media, Nikolovski pointed out that it was designed to educate the applicants and holders of information.
“I believe that I will not go too far if I say that the Law of FAPI, even though going through child diseases phases, has a revolutionary meaning for our country, perhaps similar to its influence on the future as the MAGNA CARTA LIBERTATEM, from the time of John Lack land in 1215 in England”, finished Nikolovski his speech.
According to the Minister of Justice Mihajlo Manevski, the fact that the Law regulates a relatively new area in the legal system of Macedonia creates a good soil for certain temptations that the Commission together with the information holders should surpass and solve.
“The information cannot be monopoly of the state organs, of the institutions that perform public authorizations, of judicial authorities, except for the classified information that have a special regime of use”, said Minister Manevski.
The Ambassador of Great Britain in the Republic of Macedonia, Andrew Key, stressed that the realization of the right to free access to information is a relatively new phenomenon in many countries, in Great Britain too.
“The realization of the project through the grant from the British Embassy should contribute to strengthening of the capacities of the Commission for educating the wider public about the right for accessing public documents”, added Ambassador Key.
Representatives of the expert service of the Commission presented selected experiences and data from the application of the Law, followed by a discussion with the participants.
On a special session of the workshop comparative views were made, concerning the protected and the classified information and personal data, with addresses from representatives from the Direction for Personal Data Protection and the Directorate for Security of Classified Information.
