The idea behind the Act on Access to Public Information, which entered into force in July 2003, is the unhindered contact of a citizen with state institutions and local government bodies. Has this idea been implemented in Greater Poland? Can any regularities related to its implementation be identified after four months of the Act being in force?
The grey reality
According to practitioners, the average citizen contacts the office only on two issues: local fees and changing documents. On average, therefore, we have something to deal with at the office two to three times a year. Since this is the case, it is worth enabling citizens to have remote access to the necessary, detailed information – and ultimately to “virtual payments”. The Act was intended to enable this, and the date of its entry into force (July 1, 2003) imposed on government and local government administration (along with public sector institutions) the obligation to publish a certain standard of information.
Even before July, lawyers warned about the flaws in the provisions of the Act and the related regulations. They argued that these provisions – contrary to the legislator’s intentions – do not standardize anything, using only a catalog of imprecise concepts. This opinion was also confirmed in a sense by IT specialists, pointing to the difficulties in implementing such a huge undertaking on a national scale, which, by the way, is not among the leaders in IT solutions. From the start, critics prevailed – for them, wishful thinking and incompetence often peered out from between the lines of the regulations. The fact that failure to comply with the detailed provisions of the Act and related regulations was not properly sanctioned added flavor to the situation.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 2003/6.