Archive » Year 2008 » Issue 24E / October/ 2008
FREE ACCESS TO PUBLIC INFORMATION: ENFORCEMENT, APPEALS AND JUDICIAL REVIEW. A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE FROM CEE COUNTRIES
FOIAs were adopted in Central and Eastern Europe rather late after the regime changes. After adopting the laws, however, there are still many powerful forces that are working against extensive access to information – they can be static – opaque administrative practices, general inaptitude or the lack of sufficient human and material resources – or active – agents that resist openness due to private interests, or agents that use institutional scenarios to prevent public scrutiny over corruption and incompetence. The paper approaches the jurisdictions from Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Romania, emphasizing the topic of enforcement mechanisms provided by the FOIAs. It is a follow up of an article published two years ago in the same journal.
