According to them, the amendment it introduces unconstitutional elements, significantly restricts citizens’ right to information and creates room for the arbitrariness of state officials. TASR was informed about this by Patrik Kimijan from the organization Via Iuris.
Non-governmental organizations consider the most serious problem of the amendment to the Info Act to be the condition of providing information by paying a fee. They claim that such a restriction is contrary to the Constitution of the Slovak Republic, which does not recognize the possibility of restricting access to information due to non-payment of a fee. The non-governmental organizations Via Iuris, the Zastavme korupciu Foundation, Transparency International Slovakia, INEKO, MEMO 98 and the Ján Kuciak Investigative Center are behind the challenge.
According to them, the amendment to the Information Act also does not clearly define what will be considered an “extraordinary large-scale search for information”, nor what will be the purposefully spent costs. According to them, officials can thus arbitrarily evaluate, without any criteria, in which case it is an extremely extensive search for information, which it creates a huge space for the arbitrariness of the authorities.
Although the public will be able to object to the amount of the fee, the Information Act does not recognize the institution of objections. According to non-governmental organizations, it is not clear how the authorities will proceed when handling objections to the amount of the fee. They consider it meaningless to extend the basic period for providing information from 8 to 12 working days. According to them, statistics show that the ministries and the government office did not have time to process only 0.7 percent of information requests within the legal deadlines.
According to non-governmental organizations, there was no expert discussion or interdepartmental comment procedure on the changes. “The currently valid information law was created as a result of a long professional discussion between the public and the public administration. Such serious changes in the well-functioning information law, as presented by the SNS deputies, should be preceded in a democratic legal state by a professional discussion and a proper legislative process,” pointed out the director of Via Iuris, Katarína Batková.
Last week, Parliament approved an amendment to the Information Act from the SNS workshop. The provision of information via the Information Act will therefore be subject to a fee. The MPs justified the change by the need to respond to problems with the overloading of obliged persons with frequent or excessive requests to make information available. The applicant will be able to file an objection against the calculation of the payment. The appeal body will decide on it. The new legislation is to be effective from March 1, 2025.
