One media with 75 complaints and 13 lawsuits to obtain access to public information

Despite numerous letters to the National Agency of state property and National Environmental Agencies, the information about who bought the license and to whom was given 104,712 hectares of forest in Racha-Lechkhumi-Kvemo Svaneti, for 49 years with the purpose of organizing a hunting farm, was unobtainable until we filed a lawsuit to the court with the purpose to oblige the Ministry of Environment Protection and Agriculture to provide public information. For Davit Khidasheli, the partner of the Russian oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov, we have filed a second lawsuit in the Tbilisi City Court to get acquainted with all the decisions made by the authorities on the transfer of a one third of the Racha forest for almost half of the century. Judge Nana Aftsiauri extended the case reviewing term for 5 months immediately after receiving the lawsuit. According to the article 59(3) of the Civil Procedure Code, civil cases should be reviewed by the courts within 2 months of receiving the application. For cases of a particularly difficult category, this period may be extended by no more than 5 months. The June 14 ruling didn’t have an explanation why this case was considered as difficult. Even after 5 months preliminary hearing has not been scheduled.

Judge Lela Mildenberger also automatically extended the case review period on the lawsuit filed against the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development to 5 months. Likewise to the previous case, the judge did not specify the reason for considering it as a complex one neither in this matter. We requested to instruct the Ministry to provide us with public information on what changes have been made in the contract concluded between the Russian company “Inter Rao” and the government of Georgia on the privatization of the shares of “Khramihesi 1 JSC” and “Khramihesi 2 JSC” and what kind of responsibility has been assumed for not fulfilling the obligations under the contract on Russian company.

This year we addressed about 400 applications to various public institutions. In about 8% of cases, we received public information fully within the deadlines set by law. The rate of exceeding the maximum deadline or in most cases, getting incomplete provision, is about 24%.

The legislation mandates the administrative body to determine the person responsible for issuing public information. The agencies have such persons, but they cannot make the decision independently, without agreement with the leaders, especially on current and problematic issues requested by the media.

Access to public information is also complicated by the established practice in many agencies, when the reason for rejection is the excuse that they do not process requested data.

After the crash of the border police helicopter that went for a rescue operation and the death of 8 people on July 29, in Gudauri, the Minister of Internal Affairs Vakhtang Gomelauri, banned paragliding throughout Georgia.

“As for paragliding, it's a big problem, I can confirm. It has happened more than once, hardly a week goes by without a rescue operation being necessary to carry out. There are also cases of death... we have to work on it, tighten the regulations or ban it altogether. Paragliders often crash here. It is windy, there are valleys, or there are no professionals. How license is issued, everything is interesting and we will definitely follow it up. Before it ends, during these days, in my opinion, all kinds of paragliding flights should be stopped and after study, licenses should be issued to people who are really professionals," after this statement by Vakhtang Gomelauri, "Sakartvelos Ambebi" requested following public information from his ministry: the total number of messages requesting emergency assistance during paragliding registered by the Public Safety Management Center of Georgia - “112” since January 1, 2013, by year and region; What kind of response was made to each message and in how many cases it has become necessary to involve the border police helicopters; In each case, whether an investigation has been initiated or not, under which article/articles of the Criminal Code; Whether or not the investigation was completed, with what result (how many persons were brought to criminal charges, how many were arrested and in which cases). The Ministry did not provide us with this information and noted that they do not process the data.

For 106 out of 400 applications, we could not get public information at all, not even within the given maximum period, which is why we filed 75 administrative complaints against various public institutions. After submitting the complaints, 54 agencies provided us with the requested public information. Complaints are left unconsidered by self-government and central government bodies. Out of 75 complains only one by the Agency of Protected Areas has been considered.

The administration of the Georgian government, which, together with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth, is one of the most non-transparent agencies,  does not respond to administrative complaints.

The government administration did not provide us with legal acts that establish the rules for the admission and work of media representatives in the administration building, including the attendance and work of media representatives at government sessions or other officials briefings . We could not get the decrees from the government administration, which are not published on the government's website, and by which the property was granted to various individuals at a symbolic price.

Although public institutions will not review administrative complaints, according to the current legislation, we are not able to apply to the court unless we use the mechanism of administrative complaint (Article 2.5 of the Administrative Procedure Code of Georgia). After submission, awaiting time to consider complaints last at least one month. Due to this the requested information loses its relevance, therefore, we applied to the court only in 13 cases.

The term of reviewing the cases up to 5 months are extended by the district courts too. we could not obtain public information from the mayors and city councils of Akhmeta, Sagarejo, Tsalka, Bolnisi For two months. The requested information included: what amount of money was paid to the mayor, the chairman of the city council and other officials of the self-government bodies in the form of salary, bonus or extra allowance while incumbent party came into power. Even on such a simple matter, where there are only a few pieces of evidence to be examined and the reviewing takes a maximum of 30 minutes, the judges unjustifiably use the leverage of prolonging the case up to 5 months.

The only exception in our practice is Giorgi Bukhrashvili, the judge of the Sighnaghi district court. He did not extend the review period for 5 months and instructed the defendant to submit the materials of the administrative proceedings to the court within 10 days after passing of the judgment.

Extremely poor access to public information, especially when government officials do not give comments to critical media, puts journalists at risk of spreading misleading information.

In case of not receiving public information, we can also ask the Office of Public defender Of Georgia to study the issue within the scope of its mandate and issue a recommendation to the administrative body. The ombudsman also needs several months for studying the statements. The administrative body has no obligation to consider the recommendation.

Every year, on 10^th of December, public institutions are obliged to submit a report to the Parliament, the President and the Prime Minister of Georgia, as well as to publish it in the "Legislative Herald of Georgia” on how many applications they received during the year requesting the release of public information, how many of them were refused; How many decisions were appealed by the applicants, etc. Before the end of the spring session, the Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee of the Parliament will submit to the Bureau of the Parliament a unified conclusion on the reports.

A thematic research group was created on the basis of the mentioned committee on July 26 of 2021. On April 19 of the following year, the group issued recommendations most of which were addressed to the Parliament. According to the conclusion, it is essentially important to provide completed reports,  prescribe contents in detail, develop a list of accountable institutions and determine administrative responsibility for not sumbmitting  the report.

Bolnisi, Akhalkalaki, Lentekhi, Shuakhevi, Mestia, Ninotsminda, Zestafon, Kobuleti, Ozurgeti, Borjomi and Kaspi municipalities, as well as Shuakhevi, Bolnisi, Kazbegi, Mestia city councils, National academy of Sciences and Anaklia Deep Sea Port Development Agency did not submit their reports to the parliament for the year 2021.

The draft law on “Freedom of Information”, which was prepared in 2014 with the support of the Open Society Foundation of Georgia, suggested to establish the Freedom of Information Commissioner Institute as an independent and effective mechanism for monitoring violations. The government should have submitted the draft law to the parliament in 2015, however, this obligation taken within the framework of the association agreement with the European Union has not been fulfilled to date.