Watchdog Slams Government for Limiting Access to Public Information
The Governance Monitoring Center (GMC), a local watchdog, in its January 15 statement, accuses the Georgian government of breaking the law and restricting access to public information.
The statement stresses that the Constitution and the General Administrative Code of Georgia provide for the accessibility of public information. According to the GMC, despite this “the freedom of and access to public information has been deteriorating year by year.”
The watchdog points out that one of the main directions of its work on the Squander Detector project is the collection, processing and elaboration of studies based on public information. Accordingly, the organization actively requests public information from various ministries, their subordinate agencies, as well as from various municipalities of Georgia. However, as time goes by, it becomes more and more difficult to get answers to our questions, which limits the access to public information.”
The statement includes a list of agencies that are particularly bad violators of the law and deliberately fail to provide public information.
Government of Georgia: “From 2021, the GMC has tried to obtain public information on the administrative and representative expenses of the Government of Georgia, but the executive body leaves the requests of researchers unanswered every time,” reads the statement. It also says that the Georgian government has not published government regulations since September 26, 2020, and states that this violates not only the right of others to access public information, but also the government’s own regulations.
Ministry of Culture: The statement says that since Tea Tsulukiani was appointed to the Ministry of Culture, “it has become impossible to obtain public information from the Ministry”. The GMC says it has contacted the ministry six times, but to date has not received the information it requested.
Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development: The GMC reports that in January 2023 it requested information from the National Agency of State Property, which operates under the Ministry of Economy. The GMC reports that it has not yet received the information it requested. The organization filed a complaint with the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia. The ministry did not accept the complaint and advised the watchdog to go to court, the statement says.
“Accessibility to public information in Georgia is deteriorating year by year, and the number of unanswered requests to the GMC also speaks of this situation,” – reads the statement. It stresses that freedom of information is closely linked to democratic principles and values, as well as to increasing the level of accountability and transparency of public institutions.
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