Effective remedies for denial to access public information

Public authorities are obliged to justify denials to grant access to public information

Review of legislation to verify that information holders have the obligation to justify denials to access public information, including the legal grounds and the proportionality test regarding the legal interest for not disclosing the requested information and signalling the possibility of appeal.

The law establishes the right to appeal to an independent body and/or the court

Review of legislation to verify that there is the right to appeal either to an independent institution or to the courts. If the only appeal available is the hierarchically higher body, but not to an independent appeal commission, points are not granted. The criterion requires that the institution solving the appeals is independent in the sense that: 1) it cannot legally receive orders or priorities regarding its work. 2) the higher official of the appeal body cannot be dismissed discretionally but based only on breach of their legal obligation.

The law establishes effective means to enforce appeal decisions

Review of legislation to verify that appeal decisions are directly enforceable documents that grant access to summary enforcement procedures including issuing penalties to authorities not complying with the appeal decision content.

The law establishes the deadline for solving administrative appeals is a maximum of 15 days with a possible extension of 15 days extra

Review of legislation to verify that the deadline for solving appeals does not exceed 15 working days with a possible extension of 15 working days. If there is no administrative appeal in the analysed administration, the court procedure for the first instance resolution of access to information disputes should also have these deadlines of 15 working days with a possible extension of 15 working days.

Reported rate of appeals against first instance decisions solved before the statutory deadline (%)

Review of administrative data to obtain the following figures: - Number of appeals against first instance decisions (either to an independent appeal body or to the courts) filed the calendar year prior to the assessment. - Number of appeals against first instance decisions (either to an independent appeal body or to the courts) filed the calendar year prior to the assessment which were answered before the legal deadline for solving appeals. Points are allocated depending on the reported rate of requests to appeal access of public information denials answered within the statutory deadline (x): • x < 60% = 0 points • 60% ≤ x < 95% = linear function • x ≥ 95% = 4 points.

Decisions to refuse access to public information of the appeal body overruled by final decision of the administrative appeal body or the courts (%)

Review of publicly available reports to obtain the following numbers: - Total number of first instance decisions by the appeal body, - Total number of first instance decisions of the appeal body reviewed by the court during the last calendar year; - Total number of court decisions overruling the decision of the appeal body during the last calendar year. The relevant percentage is calculated as the number of court decisions overruling the administrative appeal body decisions divided by the number of appeal body 1st instance decisions In case there is no administrative appeal body, then the total number of 1st instance court decisions in the area of access to information, which were overruled by the 2nd instance court is calculated instead. Points are allocated depending on the reported rate of decisions to refuse access to public information of the appeal body overruled by final decision of the administrative appeal body or the courts (x): • x > 50% = 0 points • 20% ≤ x ≤ 50% = linear function • x < 20% = 7 points.