Activity Details (ID# 12720)

Activity Synopsis

The objectives of the conference were twofold:

(1) to share experience regarding litigation on freedom of access to information and the challenge of balancing the public right to know and protected interests;

(2) to discuss future tasks of the International Freedom of Information Advocates Network (FOIANet), the goal of which is to provide a platform for cooperation and information sharing between all people working on access to information issues and to allow them to use this knowledge to promote access to information in their countries.
 

With respect to the first objective, participants and experts had fruitful discussions on the issue of freedom of expression and national security, Government contracts, personal data and open Government. Sixteen presentations were made on these issues by representatives of different freedom of information advocates organisations. They shared experience and information through concrete cases and conveyed their knowledge through case studies.

With respect to the second objective, a number of suggestions were put forward regarding future tasks of the FOIANet, notably for the development of this Network by countries from Central and Eastern Europe.

The Conference was widely covered by national central and local media.
 

Participants found that such a conference was very useful and that such events of information sharing should be repeated in the future. 

Representatives of freedom of information advocates organisations and individual activists from Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, Netherlands, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” and USA (New York; Washingon DC) 

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