INFORMATION ACCESSIBILITY IS IN NEED OF REGULATION

Findings of Survey on the Transparency of Activities of Ministries in the Republic of Armenia 

Information processes and information accessibility fostering optimization of governance tools are significant for the Republic of Armenia in the stage of building a free economy, developing a civil society, and strengthening the foundations of democracy. The everlasting issue of relations of the authorities with the public gains totally new features in the era of global information and communication transparency.
Transparency in the activities of public agencies can be an effective tool for fighting corruption, because open and accessible governance allows the public at large to monitor the work of public agencies and individual officials.
Accessibility of information on the activities of public agencies can help the public solve two interrelated issues: increasing public awareness on legislative and other changes, and second, developing a civil mentality and legal consciousness.

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The Civil Society Development Union believes in the importance of information accessibility and government transparency, therefore it tried to study both ways of obtaining information.
For this purpose, the Union carried out a number of measures in the period from April to October of 2001:
- written inquiries with all 21 ministries requesting some information1 on their activities or on possible other sources;
- 2 focus groups with representatives of 11 non-governmental organizations2 ;
- a sociological survey with 60 non-governmental organizations;
- interviews with public relations officers in public agencies3 ; and
- reviewing ministry charters.
The results of this survey showed that public relations and provision of information in public agencies of the Republic of Armenia have not developed and do not function as of yet. Nevertheless, transparency of government and a developed system of public feedback are amongst the most important measures in fighting corruption (as proven by the opinions of 58% of the 60 non-governmental organizations surveyed by the CSI). Another important finding of the survey is that only 3.3% of the respondents consider the activities of public agencies "rather transparent".4
Naturally, the deficient performance in this area cannot facilitate an atmosphere of trust between the public and government.
In general, the following was outlined on the basis of the survey:
- the concept of "public relations" is virtually considered the same as "media relations";
- there is no special legislation defining tools and accountability for public relations;
- ministries do not have a unified system for public relations and information disclosure (which would, of course, take into account the particularities of each ministry) to facilitate the process and to enable avoidance of administrative red-tape. In the majority of ministries of Armenia, this process is implemented to the extent it is the duty of one employee;
-the employees of ministries are incompetent due to their lack of awareness on this sector; the reason is perhaps that the system is new and still developing, but it is obvious that changes are necessary;
-internal information systems in ministries are imperfect, which hinders the sharing of information with the public and other public agencies; and
-the members of the public are not much aware of their rights.

 Another important issue is related to frequent breaches of deadlines for provision of information and incompleteness of provided information. Responses from ministries have satisfied only 31% of the respondent NGOs. 28.3% of the NGOs note that the information comes in late, while 63.3% claim the information they receive is not complete. 
Another typical aspect is that 18.3% of the respondents never got a response to their inquiries: this shows that paperwork within the ministries is either imperfect, uncontrolled, or dysfunctional. In this sense, it is reasonable that only 33.3% of the NGOs obtain information in official responses, while the majority of NGOs (51%) prefer to use non-official channels.
The reason for this is not so much the lack of competence in ministry personnel as the lack of an information system and procedures in the ministries. Obviously, this makes it impossible to obtain information.
Here are some quotes from responses of ministries:
-"...we recommend that you paraphrase and clarify your inquiries, because they are too broad, require extensive answers, and besides, a part of this information is available in open sources", a response received 2.5 months after the inquiry;
-"...since the information you request is rather broad and labor-consuming, we cannot provide it to you. Therefore, we recommend that you go to the Government of Armenia"
- "...we inform that the information you inquire is usually published in the media to acknowledge the public"
-"...your letter contains a number of unclear questions"
If inquiring about the ministry charter and strategy is unclear, then what is clear?
As for the other sources of information (official publications, mass media, IRTEK, and the Internet), it turned out that they do not fill the information gap. 58% of the NGOs use these sources, but the laws, Presidential Orders, decrees of the Government, the Prime Minister, the Constitutional Court, and the National Assembly are hardly available to ordinary people who have problems.
The IRTEK electronic database is a paid service far from being affordable or accessible for the public at large. There is no alternative electronic access to free of charge information on laws. The actual situation is that even public agencies have to pay for this service.
The Government of Armenia has its web-page that contains some information on its activities; however, the page should also contain a list of Government decrees and amendments thereto. The National Assembly also has its web-page containing some laws, but it has not been updated to incorporate amendments since 1998.

Thus, one could conclude that none of these sources of information is accessible to ordinary people: this allows officials to abuse the situation in which citizens do not have direct access to documents and have to trust the official's discrete interpretation of the requirements laid down in the document in question. Doesn't this mean the legal act could be interpreted in a favorable way for the official? Legal acts concerning the essential interests of citizens should be published at least in official media to make them accessible for the public in order to lessen the possibility of abuse, since the public would have direct access to information on vital issues. Moreover, is a published law or decree accessible for an ordinary person? Not everyone can "read" a law. Perhaps one should think of also publishing understandable comments on the laws to clarify issues that directly relate to the vita interests of people. For example, every year, the Government decides on state-guaranteed free healthcare and health services, which specifically details a list of vulnerable social groups eligible to free healthcare. However, even this most significant part of the document cannot be found in our newspapers, not to mention the official media. Often, sick people will not go to a hospital, because they do not know clearly who will finance the treatment. 
One of the ways to improve information accessibility is to adopt specific legislation (according to 66.7% of the respondents). A working group of five NGOs1 working in this area has draft a "Law on Freedom of Information", which is intended to regulate the process of information disclosure and to define a list of information subject to mandatory disclosure, as well as timelines and procedures of disclosure.
  
1 The requested information concerned the ministry's charter, structure, its public relations strategy, public services, as well as the list of NGOs that have contacted the ministry during the last six months. The first four of these categories are subject to mandatory disclosure in countries in which there is a "Law on Information Accessibility".
2 A focus group is a qualitative method of sociological surveys to discover the different perceptions of issues by different groups of people. Panels of 8-10 individuals are created for discussion purposes.
3 The selection was based on the survey of NGOs. Employees of one rather closed, two rather open, and 1 average openness ministries were interviewed.
4 Sociological survey of 60 Armenian NGOs implemented by the CSI in August of 2001.
5 CSI, Union of Investigating Journalists, Yerevan Press Club, and Internews Armenia.