IMPLEMENTING PARTNER: Center for Public Information Issues
YEARS: 2011-2012
GRANT AMOUNT: $35,000
THEME: Media
The monitoring aims to identify and make public legal and sublegal norms which, contrary to the legal provisions have not been published in the Official Journal (Gazette) of the Republic of Albania. Primary and secondary legislation, including court decisions, whose publication in the Official Journal is Obligatory under Albanian Law, will be target of this monitoring. The findings will be organized in the Monitoring Report: “Transparency of State Publications in the Republic of Albania, 2011”, which will be printed and issued as paper publication as well as online publication. All identified unpublished legislation will be uploaded in CPII’s electronic database of unpublished acts, so that anyone can access the missing legislation in user friendly website.
The monitoring findings for 2011 will be disseminated in national scale, by organizing a press conference (high visible media event) to launch the Monitoring Report, 2 TV debates, through mail delivery to all relevant state institutions, target of this monitoring, and through internet to all the public.
Media will be involved in continuous monitoring to further increase positive pressure towards responsible institutions. A group of printed media and TV journalist will be carefully selected to participate in a training program, designed by CPII on the functioning of the state publications system in Albania (legal framework) and on how to make use of it as a primary source of official information (legal, sub legal acts, etc), to efficiently control governmental transparency during decision making process and to properly inform the public. Right after the training, on a 4-months period, the journalists will be encouraged and facilitated to reflect the training program and the new skills acquired into everyday job in the media they work for. Their reports, articles and investigative stories will be carefully observed and collected by the project team during this time period. A panel composed of training lectors (senior professional journalist and law practitioners) will asses and evaluate the journalist outcome product and based on strict criteria, established in advance, will award a first prize to the best journalist report on the state publications subject. A second and e third prize will be awarded too, to fully motivate all program participants (journalists). All articles will be also published online in www.infocip.org
Finally, a survey will be conducted to assess and evaluate the current level of access to legislation in Albania, the extend at which unpublished norms (especially secondary legislation) affect practice in the court of law, journalist reporting, as well as the extend at which it influences the level of perceived corruption due to lack of transparency during governmental decision making. The main target groups of this survey will be law professionals/ practitioners and journalists. The survey’s findings will be presented in a press conference. CPII will pay attention to provide as much as possible media coverage for the event. This survey will be the first of its kind ever conducted in Albania with a clear focus on access to information on legislation. It will be indeed a baseline survey, which will set the bases for latter comparisons in the framework of follow up project intervention. The Survey will offer some other direct indicators, seen from the perspective of those who, by profession, do make use of the published legislation, in order to better assess the needs, the extend at which the missing (unpublished) legislation affect their work, etc.
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