Freedom of Information: A Comparative Legal Survey - Federation of ...

B ulgaria
Introduction
Article 41(2) of the 1991 Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria 165 guarantees the right to information
in the following terms: “Citizens shall be entitled to obtain information from state bodies and agencies
on any matter of legitimate interest to them which is not a state or offi cial secret and does not affect the
rights of others.” The Bulgarian Access to Public Information Act (RTI Law) 166 was adopted on 22 June 2000
to implement in practice this constitutional guarantee. The Law has been amended a number of times,
including signifi cant changes in 2002 and then most recently in 2007. In addition, a secrecy law, the Law
on the Protection of Classifi ed Information, 167 was passed in April 2002. This is an important development
given that the RTI Law leaves the defi nition of secret information to other legislation.
The Bulgarian Law has a number of positive features, including an innovative and progressive approach to
proactive disclosure of information and good procedural guarantees. At the same time, a major weakness
is the lack of inclusion of a fully fl edged regime of exceptions, and other shortcomings are the absence of
any administrative level of appeal and the limited promotional measures included in the Law.
There have been recent attempts to water down the otherwise progressive provisions of the RTI Law,
including in 2007, although these were ultimately abandoned. 168 In its 2006 Annual Report, the Access to
Information Programme (AIP), a respected Bulgarian NGO, noted: “Changes in the political leadership
frequently result in the alteration of good practices, and sometimes in their elimination.” 169 In other words,
it has been a constant struggle to maintain a positive framework of openness over time. The courts have
played a very important role in this process, in particular in interpreting exceptions. 170
The Right of Access
Pursuant to Article 4 of the Law, citizens, as well as foreigners inside the country and legal entities, are
entitled to access ‘public information’ subject to the conditions and procedures set forth, unless another
law provides for a special procedure for obtaining that information. The latter is unfortunate as it opens up
the possibility of another law providing for less effective, or more expensive, access undermining the RTI
Law.
The Law states its overall purpose as being the regulation of social relations governing access to public
information (Article 1). Article 6 sets out the principles relating to access to information, which include
ensuring openness and accuracy of information, securing conditions for equal access, protecting the right
to access information, and guaranteeing the security of society and the State. Although this is a useful
statement of the purposes of the Law, it does not provide much guidance as to how to balance competing
interests of secrecy and openness when these present themselves.
Public information is defi ned in the Law as any information relating to social life which gives citizens an
opportunity to form opinions about the public bodies which are covered by the Law, irrespective of how it
is physically stored (Article 2(1)). Due to problems with subjective interpretation of the notion of social life,
amendments to this were proposed in 2001 and even passed on fi rst reading by the Parliament but they
were ultimately abandoned. It would be better to include all information within the ambit of the Law without
conditioning it by reference to social life or other qualifi ers, and then to provide for a comprehensive regime
of exceptions to protect any legitimate secrecy interests.
Article 3 defi nes two sets of public bodies. The fi rst are “State bodies and local self-governance bodies”
and the second are bodies which are subject to public law, and individuals and legal entities which are
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