Rights of Access to Public Sector Information

Abstract

The reliance on national access norms is an important feature of the EU’s re-use framework. It impacts the kinds of policy choices that can be expected to be effective in stimulating commercial and non-commercial re-use of public sector information by private actors (businesses, civil society organizations, individual citizens, etc.). This paper presents the Recommendations of the LAPSI Working Group on Constitutional, Human Rights and Environmental Perspectives. We assess in more detail the relationship between the PSI Directive and (statutory) rights of access and duties to disclose information under national laws and European law. EU re-use policies and instruments must enable public sector bodies in Member States to work within their existing access infrastructure, in terms of local divisions of competences, procedures and control over pro-active dissemination of information. If the requirements imposed under EU re-use law do not align with local freedom of information laws, it may produce a negative effect on transparency. Not only that, it may also adversely affect conditions for fostering (commercial) re-use. This paper was drafted within the WG6 - Constitutional, Human Rights and Environmental Perspectives of the European Thematic Network LAPSI (Legal Aspects of Public Sector Information website).

Keywords: public sector information, open data, freedom of information law, transparency, EU legislative competence, Directive 2003/ 98/EC, Directive 2003/4/EC

JEL Classification: K00