13
Jul
2023
Watch
Public access to documents – annual report for the years 2019-2021 (debate)
Mr President, information is a key element of a democratic society and, of course, of the transparency of public administration. Citizens have the right to be informed about the functioning of our institutions. It is indeed a fundamental essence of democracy and it is important to focus on several aspects of the approach to transparency. First, of course, the process of obtaining documents must be simple and straightforward. It is also important to work towards digitalisation. I join all my speakers who have spoken about this. Of course, have a user-friendly setup of the tree structure of the availability of those documents and, of course, of the process of obtaining those documents. I must agree that we also have some difficult points in the past where the principle of transparency has not been fully respected. However, as a lawyer, I must agree that sometimes it is also important to protect the rights of others, because, for example, for reasons of public order, security, it is not always possible to ensure full transparency. In short, sometimes even the public power so-called proverbial pulls for a shorter end. But it is important to find a balance, and I think that is what we have in this report.