Freedom of Information Center of Armenia.

On August 12, the FOI Center organized a working discussion on how to apply the RA Freedom of Information Law for staff members of the Shirak marzpetaran and community leaders.

The FOI expert M. Hakobyan presented the principles of the Freedom of Information Law that would enable the participants of the discussion to work on the basis of the law, be less vulnerable and more protected. The law should become an effective work tool, which would result in the public being informed about their communities and in public participation in community life. Also, every person must be protected and must feel that his/her relationships with the authorities are based on the law.

There was a detailed discussion of formats used to reply to requests for information, with a special focus on grounds for refusing information, citations and wording. Many questions were exchanged and heated discussions took place during the meeting.

The officials think that requests for information are sent to them mainly to check how much they are aware of the law rather than to check the effectiveness of a certain sector or ask questions about a certain document. “We provide information with great pleasure, we know the law very well, we put a lot of effort into providing these answers, copy or print lots of documents, but we never receive any feedback. We have never seen any recommendations or analysis of any of the documents we had provided. We would like it very much if the information we provide had produced more effective solutions to some concrete issues. In other words, the person sending a request for information should feel like a participant rather than a demander”.

The FOI Center’s next meeting was with the youth of the marz. M. Hakobyan explained how to use the FOI Law, how to send requests for information, when to expect a reply, etc. “This discussion will make it possible for people to be pro-active and to participate in state and community developments. Informing about the law and the knowledge of how to use the law will increase the level of youth’s protection and their civic awareness,” M. Hakobyan stated to encourage the participants of the meeting.