As a citizen of Malta, you have a right to the information held by the government. This is enshrined in the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, which establishes a right to information held by public authorities to promote added transparency and accountability in government, according to the same legislation.
Since we, the people, elect the government to represent us, anything they do should not be kept a secret from us since they are doing it on our behalf, barring certain understandable exceptions.
The press makes extensive use of the FOI Act in our role as the Fourth Estate. To uphold our duty as watchdogs of the government we must have access to the information that is held by the government, but that is by right available to everyone.
When working on a story, our first point of contact for information from the government is generally the ministries, through their spokespersons. Understandably, we rarely get an immediate reply since we are sure they are not twiddling their thumbs waiting for our requests. Also understandable is that some information may not be available to the ministries straight away and some time is required to collect it.
The problem is when months on end pass by with no reply from the ministries or even an acknowledgement that our request for information has been received.
What is worrying, however, is that some information is received whilst some is not. Which makes you wonder, why is it that some requests are appeased and others are not? Is it because the government has something to hide, or is it perhaps because it is too troublesome for public officers to make the information available? Both theories are plausible.
When the prints have worn off our fingerprints from the number of reminders we send, most of the time through several methods of communication, the press has to resort to the FOI Act, which in Malta is applied through a webpage.
A request for information through the FOI Act is pretty straightforward, done through an online form. Any eligible person, as defined in the Act, can make any request for information/documentation, also as defined in the Act.
But this is where it gets complicated. Although one can ask for any document held by a public authority without giving reason or justification for the request, the request is not always accepted.
This newspaper has recently filled several FOI requests of which some have been accepted and others refused. What is confusing is the justification sometimes given for the refusals.
One FOI request, recently made by this newspaper, asked for information/documentation relating to Konrad Mizzi’s mystery visit to Dubai. The request was refused, twice. The reasons presented for the refusal were a litany of references to the Act, including to the definition of “document”, the right granted to “eligible persons” and an article dealing with how requests for access are made.
“The request does not satisfy the statutory requirements for right of access to official documents nor does it seek access to a document that falls within the legal definition. The Ministry for Tourism is, therefore, unable to accede to your request,” was the general reason provided.
Without going into the legal nitty-gritty, the Act defines a document as an article that is held by a public authority and on which information has been recorded in whatever form.
Last year, this newspaper made a similar FOI request asking for documentation regarding the Prime Minister’s trip to Australia. On that occasion, the request was accepted in full, with receipts of the expenses being provided as well as a brief explanation.
Whilst we do have the right to file a complaint about the requests that were refused, which we will surely do so, it is mind-boggling to understand why similar requests could be refused.
If a request for receipts was accepted in the case of the PM’s trip, why was a similar request for Konrad Mizzi’s trip refused?
Could it be that some documents are just easier to access than others simply because of their subject manner?
Accountability and transparency where have you gone?