The Greek Parliament is expected to vote on the adoption of the Tromso convention which has been adopted by other European countries and enables citizens to ask and get an answer from the public, for specific government documents concerning financial data and decisions.
As “Kathimerini” reports, in essence this is a change to Article 5 of the Code of Administrative Procedure, which is included in a draft law of the Interior Ministry and gives the possibility to any natural or legal person to request, after a written, in person or electronic request, to obtain knowledge of public documents, both administrative and private.
That is, the citizen will be able to ask the municipality where he/she lives to know, for example, how much money has been allocated for playgrounds, how many have finally been built and how many are expected to be built. An ordinary citizen might even ask a hospital to find out its hiring last year and its public funding.
As the newspaper reports, the deadline for providing documents will be twenty days and if this does not happen, then the citizen retains the right to appeal and can also go to the Citizen’s Advocate.
