The
1992 Constitution
provides for a general right of access to information and
a specific right of access to environmental information:(1)
Article
26 (5) State bodies and territorial self-administration
bodies are under an obligation to provide information
on their activities in an appropriate manner and in the
state language. The conditions and manner of execution
will be specified by law.
Article
45 Everyone has the right to timely and complete information
about the state of the environment and the causes and
consequences of its condition.
•
Combined gross enrolment ratio for primary,
secondary and tertiary schools, 2002/03: 75.2
•
GDP per capita (PPP US$) (HDI), 2003: 13,494
•
Total population (millions), 2003: 5
•
Total fertility rate (births per woman), 2000-05:
1.2
•
Under-five mortality rate (per 1,000 live births),
2003: 8
•
Net primary enrolment ratio (%), 2002/03: 86
•
HIV prevalence (% ages 15-49), 2003: <0.1
[<0.2]
•
Undernourished people (% of total population),
2000/03: 5
•
Population with sustainable access to an improved
water source (%), 2002: 100
Source:
UN Development Program, Human Development Reports
Data
The
Act
on Free Access to Information was approved in May 2000
and went into force on 1 January 2001.(2)
Any person or organization can demand information held by
state agencies, municipalities and private organizations
that are making public decisions. The body must respond
no later than 10 days after receipt of the request and must
keep a registry of requests. Costs are limited to reproduction
and can be waived.
There
are exemptions for information that is classified as a state
or professional secret, personal information, trade secrets
(not including environmental pollution, cultural sites or
anything related to public funds), information that was
obtained "from a person not required by law to provide
information" and who declines to release it, intellectual
property, and information on the decision-making power of
the courts, bodies in criminal proceedings, and habitats
that need to be protected.
Appeals
are made to higher agencies and can be reviewed by a court.
A public official violating the Act can be fined SK50,000.
The
law also requires that a variety of information is published
by the government bodies including their structures, powers,
procedures, and lists of regulations, guidelines, instructions
and interpretations. The National Council is also required
to publish the data of sessions, minutes, copies of acts
and information on the attendance and voting records of
MPs.
The
Citizen and Democracy Association conducted four reviews
of the implementation of the access and publication provisions
in 2002 and found that basic information was usually provided
but "problematic information" such as contracts
and privatization is often withheld. It also found that
information was often arbitrarily withheld or only given
when an attorney was involved. The Association also was
involved in several court cases including two where the
Supreme Court ruled for disclosure and also provided legal
assistance in other cases. In 2004, the government released
a number of contracts with companies such as PSA Peugeot
Citroen and Kia Motors after a court case by the Association.
A
new Act
on Protecting Classified Information went into effect
in May 2004.(3) The law creates broader
areas than the previous Act and allows public authorities
to create their own lists of classified information. Under
the previous law, Minister's wages were decreed to be classified
information in 2002. The director of the National Security
Office (NBU) said in 2001 that "Ministries decide on
what is classified information and what is not. The laws
contain annexes defining basic information and the degrees
of secrecy. It is quite obvious that this has been done
by incompetent people."(4)
In
August 2002, the Parliament approved the National Memory
Act which allowed access to files of the StB, the former
communist-era secret police.(5) The law
created the Institute
for National Memory.(6) In November
2004, the Institute released 20,000 files on informers on
its web site as part of an effort to put all of its 60,000
files online. The full list of collaborators was published
in May 2005. In February 2006, the European Court of Human
Rights ruled against Slovakia in the case of a person who
had been accused of being a StB collaborator, finding that
the denial of access to classified information that was
used to justify the finding of collaborate violated Article
8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.(7)
Slovakia
agreed to the Aarhus Convention on access to environmental
information in December 2005. Parliament approved a new
environmental act in 2004 following a fight with NGOs and
some ministries who opposed the act as limiting the right
of access.(10) The new act only regulates
the collection and publishing information. The right to
access is still regulated by the Act on Free Access to Information.
24
JULY 2003
Slovak Institute Requests Access to Czech Archives RFE/RL
Newsline reports that the Slovak National Memory Institute
has asked the Czech Republic on to provide it with archival
material on Slovak citizens who served Czechoslovakia's
communist-era secret police. Marian Gula, a member of the
institute's board, told the Czech news agency that Slovak
StB records are incomplete and some of that material is
still in the Czech Republic.
4.
Slovak Security Office Director Discusses System of
Security Screening, 2 November 2001 (translated by FBIS).
5.
ACT 553/2002 Coll. of 19 August 2002 on Disclosure of
Documents Regarding the Activity of State Security Authorities
in the Period 1939 - 1989 and on Founding the Nation's Memory
Institute (Ústav pamäti národa) and on
Amending Certain Acts (Nation's Memory Act). http://www.upn.gov.sk/data/pdf/553_2002_en.pdf
"The
law provides public access to government information;
however, NGOs claimed more education was needed
about the responsibilities of government to provide
information. Frequently, local government offices
denied requests without justification or left
them unanswered."
1)
Voice and Accountability: 1.10
2) Political Instability and Violence: 0.65
3) Government Effectiveness: 0.67
4) Regulatory Burden: 1.15
5) Rule of Law: 0.49
6) Control of Corruption: 0.39
