Here is our monthly round-up of news from the transparency organisations in the ATI Network. This month, we have updates from Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Croatia, Hungary, Greece, South Africa and Latin America. What a global hum of transparency activity!

Access Info Europe have brought a joint legal challenge against the European Commission’s new internal access to documents rules, arguing that they violate the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), and Regulation 1049/2001. More here.

SPOON in the Netherlands have gained two new members of staff, saying, “These new shining stars are not full-time, but definitely promising. We’re really happy with this addition and feel like we’ve gained a superpower!”

Additionally, they completed a major piece of research this month, investigating eight recurring assumptions in the debate around FOI in the Netherlands. It was the first time someone took the time to actually look at the facts. “And what did we find? None of them are true.”

The results of this research were presented just two days later in a parliamentary debate about the Woo, the Dutch FOIA. Hopefully, this will help counter the looming restrictions on the right to transparency in the Netherlands.

SPOON also advised three journalists on how to hold to account the Minister of Agriculture, who unceremoniously intervened by phone during a court hearing. This case, including the intervention, is now with the judge.

Finally, they helped a local media outlet in Amsterdam with their objection to a FOI decision, with the result that instead of nothing being released, nearly everything became public. Great result!

Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska (SOWP) continued their intensive activities promoting transparency and protecting civic activism.

Together with Article 19, the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, and the Polish Federation of NGOs, SOWP launched the anti-slapp.pl platform, which gathers comprehensive information about Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs).

This website offers access to legal analyses, reform recommendations, educational resources, and media coverage, thereby supporting journalists and activists in countering these threats.

SOWP also became heavily involved in the debate concerning the central register of public sector contracts. Their research across hundreds of local governments revealed that the Ministry of Finance’s proposed changes, raising the contract publication threshold from PLN 500 to PLN 10,000, would result in over 70% of contracts being undisclosed, undermining the effectiveness of the register.

They also re-ran their course “Hope(lessness) of Small and Large Municipalities,” enrolling 60 participants from across Poland, including councilors, local activists, village leaders, and public officials from 12 voivodeships. Over three months, participants will gain practical knowledge on civic oversight tools and local government operations.

Finally, SOWP also released two valuable podcast episodes this month: one addressing SLAPPs and another dedicated to successful actions aimed at protecting forests and local natural environments.

Handlingar, in Sweden, continue to apply for project funding and also looking into applying to be a part of incubators and accelerators. They want to focus efforts on getting Alaveteli much more well documented and easy to run and maintain and especially for the Pro features that can fund the public benefit free version of Alaveteli platforms. They’re looking to collaborate with all platforms and organisations in the FOIA networks! Get in touch at handlingar@okfn.se! 🙂

ImamoPravoZnati attended GONG’s annual Open Data Day conference on March 6 and 7. The event gathered institutional stakeholders, civil society organisations and data enthusiasts in a series of discussions and workshops, including one on digital tools for active citizens, where they presented their Alaveteli site Imamopravoznati.org.

KiMitTud, the Hungarian Alaveteli site, report: “In 2022, following an announcement, that the state had purchased N.S. Média és Vagyonkezelő Kft., the company that publishes the leading Hungarian sport newspaper (Nemzeti Sport), and designated a state-owned company as the entity responsible for exercising state ownership rights, Átlátszó submitted a Freedom of Information request for the contract related to the purchase of the Prime Minister’s favourite newspaper’s publishing company, but to no avail.

“They refused to release the document, claiming it was a trade secret.

“Since no such exemption applies to public funds and publicly relevant data, we took the matter to court. After more than two years of legal battles, we received the 33-page contract. The document revealed that the state had paid 3,479,756,000 forints in public funds for the publisher of Nemzeti Sport.” Read all about it here.

They continue, “Another court win from February, and quite an important one, as the court ruled in favour of the public in our case against a state railway company that hid its contract. The state railway’s maintenance subsidiary tried to withhold a 900 million HUF contract on the grounds that it “contains personal data that is subject to limited disclosure for GDPR purposes, as well as business secrets”. The court ruled, however, that as the company was managing public property and was therefore obliged to hand over the document to Átlátszó.” Read this story here.

Vouliwatch/Arthro5A The Greek organisation submitted two FOI requests this month. The first requested the publication of the members of the Ministerial Cabinet’s 2024 gift registry of (last May, following a successful appeal, VouliWatch had managed to get them to publish the registry for 2023).

The second requested information related to political parties and candidates’ finances from the Parliament’s audit committee, that is update on loans of each political party, election expenses of candidates and political parties, etc. The information in question, according to the law, should have been made public proactively.

Abrimos Info report that Mexico’s National Institute of Transparency for Access to Information and Personal Data Protection, INAI, is finally set to disappear this month, as secondary laws have already been approved.

Abrimos Info has secured a small rapid response grant to make a quick backup of parts of the national transparency platform, and continue to check on whether the data remains consistent after the switch.

They will be participating in the International Journalism Festival in Perugia in April, and participated in the OpenDataDay in México City. You can see a report on this here.

OpenUp ZA South African organisation OpenUp participated in the Africa & Middle East Open Government Partnership Regional Summit. “It was a lovely reconnection between our team and the stalwarts of the African FOI community in organisational partners like the Africa Freedom Of Information Centre, Uganda and the Media Rights Agenda, Nigeria”, they say.

mySociety: And finally, here at mySociety we have been working hard preparing for our TICTeC conference, after the whirlwind of the USA funding freezes – don’t forget to get your tickets!

We’ve also been drafting guidance around exceptions to the FOI act to support users from marginalised groups, and providing advice and support to two cohorts of people who are getting ready to submit their first requests.

—

Image: Filip Mishevski

Sejmometr.pl team is currently working on adding written questions functionality to their portal. As with all other options, this one has to comply with the local legislative process, which according to their blog looks like this:

“In the Polish law system, there are three types of questions that MP can make:
– spoken questions – on each Sejm session, there is a time when each MP can ask a question and receive an immediate answer from a government representative.
– written questions called “interpelacje”
– written questions called “zapytania” “

According to Daniel Macyszyn the last two types do not differ much from the point of view of general public – the target audience of his website, hence why the plan is to put them in the same category on Sejmometr.pl.

“My opinion is that the difference between “interpelacje” and “zapytania” is understood only by a specialists and regular users won’t care so much if a particular written question was submitted as an “interpelacja” or “zapytanie”. That’s why I’m planing to join them in a Sejmometr database structure and present them in a one browser.”

I am sure will will find out if it works in practice fairly soon.

Do you have similar instances of simplifying the legislative proces for the sake of your projects? Do let us know!

It is extremely useful to see the updates of our projects on their own blogs, so we are very happy to see Sejmometr.pl starting one in English. Daniel, the lead developer, is posting about their current work on processing the outstanding data from sessions of Sejm. He is also raising a very interesting question of presenting the sessions in a form of a calendar (using TheyWorkForYou.com as an example). He seems to come to the conclusion that a calendar view could become a central part of the entire Polish website, and would make it possible to present all events – parliamentary sessions and other, additional events in two categories:

-“all-day events – for presenting Sejm sessions’ days

-single events – for presenting all other legislative events (mainly announcing documents like: bills, committees’ reports and such)”

This solution raises another question (related to Sejmometr’s general focus on users’ communication with the website):

“If this would work as a typical calendar, why won’t provide tools for synchronizing calendars? Users could synchronize their iCals or Google calendars to Sejm calendar via Sejmometr. Just another form of communication in addition to notifications, RSS and mails. For sure, it would be a great tool for MPs, but what about regular site users? Is this worth of implementing?”

What do you think? Is it a good idea? Can you support Daniel with your thoughts and experience? Do let us know in the comments section!

What problem are you solving?:

The project aims at activating the recipients including youth groups, the disabled, the unemployed, women, refugees, etc in their efforts to the development of the region considered most attracted ecologically sound tourism and food production in Poland (4 national parks: forest swamps, rivers and lakes: the Bialowieza National Park, lake and Mazurian) mechanisms for citizens through the use of sample projects: Festival of European Alternatice Energy, the cycle of training, promotional activities, information, art, actions to assist local communities, to involve them in participation in the creation government, local government projects for regional development. Assumed to create a railway station / bus station in Bialystok, the promotion of the center, tourist information, regional training center and space for the recipients of project (in the field of tourism, ecology, organic agriculture, civic activities, Internet use, the local culture, protection of cultural heritage

Describe your idea:

– Creation CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE LOCAL AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT, PROMOTION AND INFORMATION- training about 300 people, about 5,000 visitors
– creating new jobs in tourism, organic farming, renewable energy, construction of low-cost eco-homes with clay, creating hiking trails, organic farming and production of healthy food, local lines of railway, the renovation of historic buildings, to save local traditions
– Model projects as electric car, systems of renewable energy, waste management, household waste water treatment plants, etc.
– A program of regional development policy urealnienia cycle 12 weekly open, moderated, discussion meetings, debates, social hour 2-3 for the residents of the region around 50,000 participants
– Www.zubr.free.pl to launch and maintain the website of an educational, to promote tourism and ecological values of the region around 1 million visitors interactive dissccus forums, transmissions, relations, article created by readers etc
– Summer Festival

What country will this operate in?: Poland

Who are you?:

FEDERATED ASSOCIATION OF GREEN IN BIAŁYSTOK is a group of people whose aim is to promote activities of social and environmental not fall within the traditionally understood categories of science, politics, or economics. this requires combining different fields of knowledge and people with different interests. ecology, environment, nature, sustainable development, bicycle roads, ecological transport, education, health, economy, vegetarian, society, science, civilization, implementation

What problem are you solving?:

The important problem in Poland is the still developed number of conflicts between citizens and institutions of authority, business and public administration . It means, they violate interests and rights of citizens. It breaks the principles of the state of law.
The Polish law allows active participation of NGO-s as ‘third party’ supporting the citizens in legal proceedings and negotiations, particularly towards local authority. However the rules are often a dead letter of law and the preservation of citizens’ rights and interests being less effective than it possibly may be.
For four months The MONITOR Association has been elaborating the Project entitled “The NGO’s active legal supportive participation in citizens’ rights and interests preservation”
The main goals of the Project are: a) to re-activate practise possibilities of supportive participation, b) to strengthen the position of citizens towards authority, business and other public institutions.

Describe your idea:

The main instrument to realize Project will be the Advisory Group.
We propose Wortal:
MAIN -‘News’;‘Our commentaries’; ‘Submit/comment the news’; ‘We talk to…’ ; ‘About us & Cooperaion’; ‘First contact’
CIVIC INTERVENTION CENTER–concerning the main goals of the Program.
‘Citizens’ Office for Public Conflict’; ‘MONITOR inquires’
PROGRAMS & ACTIONS – A number of menus includes own start-site, instruments of monitoring, commentaries, submit form
EDUCATION-Sites concerning knowledge of civil society,
USERS– Sites:‘Log in’; ‘Contact links’; ’Sponsors/Partners’

REMARKS:
1)The actual website of Association is made in Mambo.Is it accept?
2) The Users could to have random access to Wortal and Association.
3) The monitoring programs are the instruments to control the potential areas of conflicts.
4) There will be included basic information we need for active supporting of citizens.

What country will this operate in?: Poland

Who are you?:

The MONITOR Association was founded in 2004 year as local so-called watchdog organization. It has been actively monitoring many areas of local authority activities since. As a first organization in the country it professionally studied legal functioning of free access to public information. In 2006 Association studied in practice an implementation of the new regulations concerning the court’s mediation as an alternative towards proceeding method of conflicts resolution in the civil code.
We are currently elaborating two projects – the above mentioned one, additionally a second one – ‘Bank towards citizens – between business and public credibility.’

What problem are you solving?:

Most people, when we say about law, see a government, court of justice, politicians, strange procedures and treat it as a topic that do not concern them. They do not feel they can do anything with it, that they have real impact on how the law can be changed. Moreover, people usually do not see that the choices they are making during the election have something common with the law. The true is that all the people are those who have right to decide, because the law is not something above us but something among us. The politicians should respect our needs when creating law proposals, because we have chosen them on our representation in the government. This is the foundation of democracy. To encourage people in active participation in law preparing, we want to show people that law is common and concern everybody. Moreover people may influence on it and we should talk about it so the politicians could change it according to our needs.

Describe your idea:

The idea of project is to prepare an interactive, transparent tool – world wide web, based on open source solutions, where all the parties, politicians, NGO’s and groups of citizens can put and present an act proposal before it becomes obligatory. Thanks to it, proposals will be publicly available – everybody can read it, rate it, put a comment. To present this tool to a wider public we would like to arrange some meetings and prepare trainings on how to use it, combined with the discussion on social engagement in law preparing. Campaigns in press, radio and television will be organized to spread the information about this social web. The portal will show quantity and quality of draft laws and allow any citizen to comment on proposed laws and contribute to its improvement and development. Such a possibility is the foundation of democracy. At the same time the political parties receive a very effective tool which enables them presentation of their contribution on the law creation.

What country will this operate in?: Poland

Who are you?:

I represent the “Fundacja Rozwoju Edukacji i Kultury (FREiK) ‘MIERZESZYN’” (”Education and Culture Development Foundation ‘MIERZESZYN’”), which has a legal status of a public benefit organization. We support initiatives that encourage the strengthening of social ties and local solidarity by involving local residents. One of our statutory aim is to strengthen social capital through the development of social economy: activation and mobilization of local partners, regional and national support for civil society institutions, building partnerships between the public and private social support citizenship, the construction of decentralized networks of social interaction. Until the present day the Foundation has successfully run several projects. The latest one is “Active, competent, progressive – job activation of youth and ICT learning for children from municipality of Trąbki Wielkie” supported from European Social Fund within the Human Capital Program.

What problem are you solving?:

Poland has been living in a democracy for 20 years. Still, we have a feeling that democracy is more about procedures and images, not a real experience. Research and everyday practice show that Poles do not trust one another, are often unable to cooperate, and do not appreciate success. In many Polish regions and in Warsaw – which has become a melting pot – social capital is weak.
However, we do not take this as a “must be”. We strongly believe that we can change our country to make it a more attractive place to live and give our democracy a true meaning. Most of us come from minority groups, such as the LGBTQ community, but we want to bring about social change not only for the most discriminated, but for everyone. So often were we working on improving democracy as a mechanism, now we want to strengthen its virtues: cooperation, acceptance, trust.

Describe your idea:

We envisaged a multi-task, interactive, technically advanced website which would offer:
1. An online “living library”: a place where people can meet and learn each from another. This tool can raise awareness of diversity – a key point for improvement of social capital. We want to propose one our own “living book” every month, but we encourage every readerto become a “book”: present his/her story by video and audio podcasts, texts and chats.
2. An e-learning tool for a general public, as well as for leaders of social change. It will offer regular courses (with group video chat learning sessions, etc) to improve the skills and abilities which we think are key to social change and social capital improvement.
We want to develop as well our existing e-magazine homiki.pl to make it more interactive and develop further e-publications on social change and social capital improvement.

What country will this operate in?: Poland

Who are you?:

Our group met in 2004 when we started our online magazine homiki.pl. Then, we focused on LBGTQ issues wanting to promote community identity and culture. With time, we started to focus on the factors making society and democracy in Poland imperfect. We asked: What are the factors that drive intolerance directed at the LGBT people and others?, What weakens the quality of links in the society? This led us to the idea of openness and social capital. In 2008, we set up an NGO dealing with publications and trainings. A group of app. 20 people from 20 to 55 y.o. from the whole Poland, we represent different backgrounds. We work in 2 teams, one dedicated to publications, the other one to trainings. Our trainers, with their large experience confirmed by diplomas, will manage the e-learning component, the “publishers” group will assure the living library to be a crowded place!

What problem are you solving?:

Hate speech is defined as using language to insult, libel, or stir up hatred against a person, a group of people or any other entity designated by the speaker. Polish law does not allow for prosecution of manifestations of hate speech and the subsequent hate crimes, especially in relation to people who are not included in the premise list in the articles of the Criminal Code.

Existing monitoring activities undertaken by various organizations include only the monitoring of court cases directly relying on articles 119, 256 and 257 of the Criminal Code, paying no attention to the fact that the lack of the term “psychosexual orientation” is the main factor for hate speech and hateful actions against LGBT people going to the courts on the basis of other articles.

Describe your idea:

Designing a website with an up-to-date report of cases where hate speech is the main or one of the main issuess. This report will consist of six steps:

Step 1 – A description of the case – what has exactly happened (including the query in the courts for cases in which there were hate speech and/or hate acts).

Step 2 – Description of the reaction – newspaper articles, both parties reports

Step 3 – Information about filing a lawsuit

Step 4 – the prosecution monitoring – dependent on the consent of the plaintiff and the availability of evidence (pleadings, articles in the media)

Step 5 – The Verdict – at this point we would like to publish the operative part of the Ruling and statements made by experts and stakeholders on it

Step 6 – The follow-up – further events related to the case. In the event of an appeal of the parties, a further monitoring, in the case of a final court decision and the presentation of settlement of the press and others on the sentence.

What country will this operate in?: Poland

Who are you?:

Our mission is to build a positive image of LGBTQ people by creating a climate of social acceptance.
Our Association was established in 1997. We are a national organization by law, but most of our activities are based locally around the Warsaw area. Our members are mostly volunteers and professionals who spend their time working on our projects.

Our statutory aims are:

building a positive identity among LGBTQ people.
promoting social tolerance for LGBTQ people.
combating HIV/AIDS and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
fighting discrimination, especially with regards to sexual orientation.

Professionalism is a very important issue for us. We have already implemented the Volunteer’s Ethical Code and became members of the Polish Help-lines Association (PTPT), Federation of Social Service Organizations Mazowia and International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA-Europe). We are also associated with the National Federation of Non-governmental Originations.

What problem are you solving?:

Currently, Poland is the largest EU member state in which same sex
relationships have no effective legal safeguards, as well as one of
the few European countries where the discussion on this issue has not
been sufficiently taken on by the authorities. The aim of this
campaign is to monitor the debate which is beginning right now.
Creation of a website that will monitor the discussion on civil unions
and enquiring as many political leaders about this matter as possible,
will allow to gather previously scattered data and enable the analysis
of discourse – both quantitative and qualitative.

We plan to:
1. monitor what political leaders and other opinion leaders are saying
about the issue of civil unions in the media, and put it up on the
website,
2. survey the candidates in upcoming elections:
1) presidential elections 2010,
2) local elections (mayors) 2010,
3) general elections 2011.

Describe your idea:

We plan to create a website consisting of the following elements:
1. Information about the statements of opinion leaders and press
reports regarding civil unions – updated in news form.
2. Information on the activities of NGOs, political parties, the
Government and other centres of opinion regarding civil unions.
3. A section, where one will be able to see what and when did an MP,
or government official, say about civil unions.
4. A section showing the frequency in which the subject is brought up
in media appearances, with data arranged according to party
affiliation, as well as attitude towards civil unions.
5. A survey, conducted prior to each election (until the end of 2011),
regarding civil unions, targeted at election candidates. Answers will
undergo a quantitative and qualitative analysis and will be presented on a section within the website in form of diagrams and descriptions.
6. Experts’ views, opinions and analysis resulting from the data
collected.

What country will this operate in?: Poland

Who are you?:

Beginnings of SPR date back to January 2006, when a branch of Campaign
Against Homophobia (CAH), a Warsaw-based LGBTQ association, was
established in Toruń. In December
2008 CAH Toruń was transformed into an independent and fully-fledged
association called Diversity Workspace (SPR).
After four years of activity SPR’s accomplishments include: annual QueerFest
festivals in Toruń,
outdoor actions, e.g. Anti-Homophobic Clinics in Toruń, in Grudziądz and Włocławek and
Day Of Silence demos, a poster campaign
(”You are not alone” December 2007), public debates with
scientists, politicians, journalists and others opinion leaders, and Living
Library events.
Since its establishing as an independent LGBTQ association SPR is
active not only locally, but also nationally.

In addition, thanks to the twin-city link
between Toruń and Leiden (Netherlands), SPR has close ties with its
Dutch counterpart – COC Leiden.

What problem are you solving?:

The development of international cooperation between Polish NGOs and social organisations from the countries of the former Soviet Union requires ever greater professionalism, and common knowledge of existing opportunities for undertaking such cooperation.

The awareness of the conditions under which non-governmental organisations function in specific countries in this region is essential for a balanced partnership between NGOs.

This collaboration could be much more effective if there will be a higher level of knowledge and better information exchange about social problems and social initiatives undertaken in each country.

The transparency of social activity could also help in developing open civil societies in the countries of the region. That’s why we would like to propose to develop the Russian language web-site as an international platform for dialog about experience in undertaking social cooperation of NGOs from Poland and CIS countries.

Describe your idea:

Russian language portal to aid the development of international cooperation for organisations from Poland, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia
It will provide a tool for exchanging information and promoting cooperation through which the transparency of international activity is increased
It will offer
• INTERACTIVE MESSAGE SERVICE about the latest events, upcoming deadlines for program applications and a weekly newsletter. A form on the website enables users to submit messages by themselves
• PARTNERS SOUGHT SECTION to assist organisations in finding partners and thus develop a network of international cooperation using an interactive form
• INTERACTIVE KNOWLEDGE BASE of the NGO sector in the countries of the regions, increasing in the professionalism of NGO cooperation. It will be developed based on user participation through submitting proposals for analysis and research
• DATABASE of NGOs and informal groups prepared to develop international cooperation

What country will this operate in?: Poland

Who are you?:

We are a small group of the young enthusiastic editors, who are deeply interested in social and cultural development of East European, Caucasus and Central Asia countries. Until December 2009 our web-site Rus.ngo.pl , worked as an independent project operating under the Klon/Jawor Association (editors of Poland’s most popular web portal focussing on the activity of the Polish non-governmental sector. Currently the project’s institutional framework is undergoing changes. We are in the process of building a new organizational structure.