The Regional Openness Index shows that executive institutions in the region publish only the most basic information about their work, while the public is generally denied access to key information, it was concluded at the third panel of the regional conference “Public Policy Making Process: Participation, Transparency, Accountability” organized by the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT).
Speaking about the transparency of institutions in Serbia, the representative of Partners Serbia, Kristina Obrenović, stated that research, reports by international organizations and the reality of citizens show that institutions are increasingly closing down.
“This year marks 20 years since the implementation of the Law on Free Access to Public Information in Serbia, and it seems to us that we cannot single out those champions of openness. For years, we have had a list of unanswered questions that grows every day. Although the Regional Openness Index shows that institutions publish the most basic information, access to key information is still lacking,” said Obrenović.
She said that public hearings are being held in Serbia, but, as she assessed, they have very little effect.
“The moment that is much more important is missing, and that is early public consultations. At the stage when we have a draft law and a public debate, it is already a formed law, a formed proposal. There, public discussion can only contribute to some technical changes or if the public strongly opposes a solution, it is possible that something will change. Neglecting early public consultations means that the interested public loses the opportunity to influence the structure, content, and quality of the law,” said Obrenović.
She problematizes lex specialis laws that are passed without public participation, pointing out that the passage of these laws relieves the mandatory activities that precede the passage of regular laws.
There is no greater, more visible progress in terms of transparency of the work of institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina either, said the representative of the association Why Not? from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Amina Izmirlić Ćatović.
“Some of the institutions, a very small number, have managed to recognize the importance of openness and transparency and have improved their results, but there has been no change on a broader level. We still have numerous institutions that are stagnating, with some minimal progress or everything else is at a low level of openness,” said Izmirlić Ćatović.
She explained that state-level institutions are characterized by greater transparency, which, as she stated, most often depends on the head of those institutions.
“Institutions are more open if we move towards higher organizational levels of government, but there is an unevenness in those groups of institutions and we can conclude that openness depends only on the goodwill of the person leading them. At the same time, state-level institutions achieved a slightly better result compared to entity-level institutions, and I mean both entities,” said Izmirlić Ćatović.
Certain state institutions, stated Izmirlić Ćatović, lack basic organizational information, considering that the segment of budget transparency and public procurement could be significantly improved.
Commenting on the process of public hearings in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Izmirlić Ćatović said that, if we are talking about laws that are of a political nature and that have already been decided to be adopted, citing the Foreign Agents Law in Republika Srpska as an example, public hearings are only formally conducted.
“In essence, public hearings do not represent any way to influence changes to laws that are usually passed through an urgent procedure,” assessed Izmirlić Ćatović.
The representative of the Metamorphosis Foundation from North Macedonia, Mila Josifovska Danilovska, stated that since the beginning of the implementation of the Regional Openness Index, progress has been noted in the level of transparency of the executive and legislative branches.
“When we first pointed out to them their shortcomings in terms of good governance, they adopted a strategic approach to solving all these problems. Of course, they did not reach the highest level, but at the beginning the Government obliged all institutions to publish a set of 21 pieces of information about their work. Then they introduced a tool for accountability of public office holders, where you can see the expenses of each official. This tool functioned until 2021,” explained Josifovska Danilovska.
Commenting on the results achieved by the ministries in North Macedonia, which are better than the results of the ministries in the region, Josifovska Danilovska highlighted the Transparency Strategy as a partial reason for that success, which, as she explained, was created in a consultative process with civil society and institutions.
“This Strategy is mainly based on the principles of the Regional Openness Index and was financially and expertly supported by Metamorphosis. The institutions have recognized the value of the index. The aim of the Strategy is to improve active transparency, fiscal transparency, access to information, and digital capabilities of institutions so that some processes can be automated,” she explained.
The conference was organized as part of a project funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The views expressed during the event represent the opinions of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of the donors.
Link to the original text: U regionu izostaju key information o radu vlada » CDT
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