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Saxony and Berlin

In Germany, a Freedom of Information Law exists since 2005. However, compared to the South Asian area, it is hardly benefited from. This was confirmed by the participants of a delegation from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka during a visit program to Saxony and Berlin. All participants, jurists and collaborators from non-governmental organizations, actively contribute to the introduction and implementation of Freedom Information Laws in their respective countries. This educational trip presented them with the opportunity of acquiring information through various conversations with representatives from the political, administrative, economic and civil initiatives areas concerning the Freedom of Information Law and its implementation in Germany, in order to obtain incentives for their work in the South Asian region.

Since the beginning of the visit trip to Leipzig, it was evident that Germany can also further promote the Freedom of Information Law. On this account, Saxony is one of the five Federal States in which a Freedom of Information Law at a State level, doesn’t exist yet. Members of the delegation were very moved especially by Leipzig, where the beginnings of the pacific revolution and the citizen’s willpower in favor of more transparency, took place. Nevertheless, they were surprised by the fact that, currently, there is no major citizen participation to intercede in introducing the Freedom of Information Law. In a conversation held with the President and Magistrate of the Federal Administrative Court, it also became clear that, in spite of the strong will to produce a transparent administration, up until now, the Freedom of Information Law has hardly been used at a national level.

This was also confirmed during the conversations held with Dr. Alexander Dix, Berlin’s commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, as well as with Dr. Michaela Schultze at the Federal Commissioner’s office. Yet, there were also some reasons mentioned. Consequently, since the end of the 1970s, there is an existing data protection law in Germany that covers some areas which, in the South Asian countries, are included in the laws concerning Freedom of Information. Berlin’s commissioner also emphasized that there were already some existing laws on the field previous to the Freedom of Information Laws, especially the Data Protection Law that regulates information and data management concerning individuals, as well as the Communication Media Right at a Federal State level which establishes, among others, the journalists’ right to receive and gather information from administrative departments.

More than 10 years ago, civil rights organizations and the German Reporters Association (Deutscher Journalisten-Verband, DJV) took the initiative in favor of a Freedom of Information Law. Regrettably ―as the spokesperson for the DJV, Hendrik Zörner, pointed out― September 11th and the intensification of safety regulations postponed this exceptional project. After all, the Freedom of Information Law is, in its current version, an agreement that covers the original demands only in a limited way.

As a special and positive application of the Law, the “Berliner Wassertisch” (Berlin Water Table) initiative was presented; it seeks to use the Law in order to demand the disclosure of contracts pertaining to the public sector. The Berlin Water Table’s spokesperson, Ulrike von Wiesenau, informed the participants of the initiative, and the popular initiative’s transition to a plebiscite in early 2011 in order to reveal the contracts and supplementary agreements on the partial sale of Berlin’s water companies. This civil initiative reflects, after all, the citizens’ desire for more transparency in the State.


The delegation with Dr. Alexander Dix