Access to and the spread of information
It is difficult to imagine a fully democratic society without guarantees of transparency in overseeing the exercise of decision-making by the organs of the public administration. In a free Poland, it has been necessary to change thinking on the functioning of public administration, as was the case in the revolution in thinking about the role of the media in public life. As such, the authorities have obligations towards the media, rather than the other way round. Analogously, the administration should serve citizens and not vice versa.
For this reason, the law on free access to public information of September 6th 2001 was enacted. According to the act every citizen has the right to:
obtain public information, including information that has been reworked to an extent that potentially effects the public interest;
view administrative documentation;
access the collegiate sittings of public authorities organs resulting from general elections;
Furthermore, not only the content of administration acts will be made public. As written in the act, public administration organs are obliged to provide information on legislation plans, and planned normative acts.
Citizens also have full rights to obtain answers related to questions on the functioning of given administrative offices, and especially information on the finances of public administration units and other publicly financed institutions. The above-mentioned law allows insights into information on public assets, including:
the Ministry of the Treasury assets and state legal entities,
The assets of local government units (...),
The income and loss statements of trade companies in which the organs of public authorities have a dominating position as understood by the Trades Company Code, and revenues and means of covering losses at their disposal. (...).
Moreover, the law obliges publication of public information via public announcements on the Internet. Each organ of the public administration should do this via the specially created tele-information pages of the Bulletin of Public Information.
