The planned clear-cutting of the federal Freedom of Information Act (IFG) is encountering bitter resistance from the control authorities. The Conference of Freedom of Information Commissioners (IFK) has clearly rejected the Federal Government’s plans to massively restrict access to administrative information. From the committee’s point of view, the announced move away from an unconditional entitlement amounts to a de facto abolition of the right to freedom of information at the federal level. Instead of the added value promised in the coalition agreement, there is a risk of a regression into the era of closed authority knowledge.
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The IFK emphasizes in its statement that freedom of information is not a burdensome task, but rather a historic achievement. It’s about making government actions controllable. Given the growing mistrust of government organizations, it would send the wrong signal to restrict citizens’ control rights. Trust in the administration and acceptance of liberal democracy were essentially based on transparency and traceability.
High hurdles and blanket exceptions
The stumbling block is a decision by the coalition committee. It envisages drastically raising the hurdles for access to information in the federal government. In the future, a right to information should depend on a “legitimate interest”, which would turn the previous principle on its head. The regulations only apply if no other information rights exist. Only German citizens or EU citizens living in this country should be eligible to apply – with rising fees. Entire sectors such as critical infrastructure or research would be deleted from the law across the board instead of examining risks on a case-by-case basis.
The IFK considers Black and Red’s claim that the measures make the law more understandable to be implausible. The argument of state resilience does not apply because the right to information already offers comprehensive protection for security interests. There is no need to exclude entire areas. The IFK accuses the government of using the reference to security as an excuse.
Additional bureaucratic effort and breaches of EU law
The required departure from unconditional demands is a serious matter. In the future, the state will no longer have to justify secrecy, but rather citizens will have to justify their interest in information. According to the IFK, that would be a rollback to over twenty years ago. Furthermore, the reform would lead to significant additional bureaucratic effort in the authorities, as authorizations and interests would now have to be checked for every application and processing steps for cost collection would have to be documented. Journalists are threatened with losing tried-and-tested IFG access channels.
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The freedom of information officer in Baden-Württemberg, Tobias Keber, warns against the withdrawal of the right of inquiry for associations and NGOs. The European Court of Human Rights has made it clear that civil society organizations play an indispensable role as social watchdogs. Denying them access would be contrary to the Convention.
The front against the initiative of the CDU, CSU and SPD is becoming increasingly broader. The former federal commissioners Peter Schaar and Ulrich Kelber have already described the decisions as devastating. NGOs and unions are protesting, a petition is ongoing. The IFK is therefore calling on the government to take modern state transparency laws as a model instead of this project.
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