Dear Law-Lib Colleagues,
I wanted to share this article with you, and express my concern that these
proposed revisions to the law on public access to government documents could
disastrously affect legal research in the EU. Does anyone have any more
information on this topic that they could share with the list? This piece
was the first I had heard of these proposed changes...
Open Access in Peril for EU Documents <http://freegovinfo.info/node/1876>? Wed,
2008-06-04 12:11 — StanfordLawLibr...
[Cross posted on legalresearchplus <http://legalresearchplus.com/>]
Shrinking access to EU documents? This is from a press release
<http://ombudsman.europa.eu/release/en/2008-06-02.htm>on the European
Ombudsman site:
"The European Ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, has called on the
European Parliament (EP) to defend the European Union's commitment to
transparency and the citizens' right of access to EU documents. This follows
the European Commission's recent proposals to revise the law on public
access to documents. In his contribution to today's public hearing in the
EP's LIBE Committee (Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs), the
Ombudsman said:
"The Commission's proposals would mean access to fewer, not more, documents.
This raises fundamental issues of principle about the EU's commitment to
openness and transparency."
Read the entire contribution given by the Ombudsman
<http://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/letters/en/20080526-1.htm>
The EU proposals sharply limit the definition of what is a "document" — "The
Commission's proposed definition of a document would mean that, in many
cases, citizens could only apply for access to a document if it appeared in
a register."
Read the full text of the EU proposal to revise Regulation 1049/2001:
"Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission
documents<http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/200805/20080527ATT30126/20080527ATT30126EN.pdf>"
[4/30/2008]
Best regards,
Emily
-- Emily G. Rushing egrushing@gmail.com 214.392.5114
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 06 2008 - 10:35:27 PDT