As with the current Constitution, the draft Constitution [AM] protects the right to freedom of speech and information, but an additional article, the Right of Access to Information (Article 51), added to the draft contains problematic wording.

According to this article, every person shall have the right of access to information from the state and local self-government bodies and their officials, but the scope of these bodies compared to the current Constitution is limited.

The Law on Freedom of Information today provides for a broader scope for information holders: state agencies, organizations financed from the state budget, and public organizations, which include organizations that have a monopolistic and dominant position or belong to sectors of public importance (education, sports, culture, healthcare, transport and communication, social security, public utilities).

With the proposed draft Constitution, unscrupulous decision-making politicans can leave certain bodies out of the law, so that people won’t be able to access information about them.

Current freedom of information law and practice has developed the framework of the information that can be received from state bodies. It’s possible, for example, to access information on a fact, occurrence, or phenomenon. But with the proposed amendments, [only] documents and information on activities can be accessed.

A few years ago, in 2012, the Freedom of Information Center of Armenia submitted an information request to the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), asking if HHK was calling its members and asking them to provide information such as the number of voters in their family, their first and last names, patronymics, and birth dates, and asked what was the purpose of gathering this personal data on HHK members’ families?

[Then head of the HHK parliamentary faction] Galust Sahakyan replied to the inquiry and denied the allegations. This was an information request on a phenomenon, an occurrence.

According to current legislation, officials must respond to queries on an occurrence, phenomenon, or event. To submit information requests on such phenomena would be very difficult with the proposed draft, since unscrupulous decision-making politicans can leave out of the law queries on phenomena or events, considering them not part of state bodies’ activities.

With the draft Constitution, officials may be subject to liability for refusing without any legal grounds to provide the requested information and for concealing information. But omitted is the liability for violating the timelines of provision, for providing incomplete or false information, or other ways of infringing on the right of access to information.

It turns out that the draft Constitution’s Right of Access to Information article restricts the current limits on freedom to receive information, the scope of bodies and the scope of the information that can be received from these bodies, and provides for fewer grounds for holding liable those officials who will infringe on this right.

I think, the authors of the draft Constitution failed in the question of examining the practice of enforcement of information law in Armenia because if they had examined it, they would see what developments there are and how this right has moved forward in Armenia. Or there is simply an intention to limit the possibilities of access to information.

Gevorg Hayrapetyan
Lawyer, Freedom of Information Center of Armenia

The views expressed in the column are those of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Media.am.