Law on Access to Information to Enter the Parliament Procedure Soon

Slobodan Franovic After two years of preparation, the Draft-Law on Access to Information entered into Government review procedure (to be read and commented by the competent Committees), and is expected to go into the Parliament by the end of the year, announced yesterday Slobodan Franovic, President of the Montenegro Helsinki Committee for Human Rights (MHC). He added that a seminar on the freedom of information is to be held today and tomorrow in Budva, organized by Article 19, Initiative for Justice and MHC. The seminar should serve as a forum for exchange of experiences in the implementation of legislation on freedom of expression and information in the region. Franovic reminded that Montenegro, together with Serbia and Macedonia, still hasn’t adopted legislation on free access to information. "The procedure to adopt this Law has taken too much time, and we are also worried whether it will be harmonized with international standards. The implementation, as with many other laws, will also bring about its own share of problems”, said Franovic. MHC President justified the slow preparation process with different approaches inside the working group, which included representatives of the NGO sector, journalists’ association, as well as people from the ministries of culture, justice and interior. He added that fundamental changes will be needed for proper implementation of the Law, having in mind that the society has been characterized, through the years, by a prevailing “culture of secrecy”, which took it for granted that the Government shouldn’t be accessible to the citizens. Sarah Buchanan from Article 19 said that the goal of the two-day seminar in Budva is to promote the right to free access to information and added that, once it adopts the Law, Montenegro will join the family of 80 countries in the world which enabled their citizens to access the information in possession of their governments. "This is a key Law for the economic and social prosperity of every community, since it guarantees the transparency and openness of a government to public scrutiny, which is one of the instruments in the fight against corruption. A lot has been done over the past two years, and now it’s on the Government to ensure that the Law is in compliance with the international standards”, emphasized Buchanan.