Independent Authorities, The role and significance within the Greek legal order, Athens 2010, Nomiki Vivliothiki, pages 1 – 127

The provision to each citizen of the right of access to data held by the Administration constitutes, for any well-governed State, a necessary condition for the democratic governance of the State’s public affairs as well as for the effective exercise of the fundamental rights of its citizens. The scope of this study is to identify cases of introversion in the Public Administration, analyze them as social and –mainly- as legal phenomena as well as to propose ways for strengthening “open governance” in today’s society of modern information and communication technology. This study is not limited to a theoretical approach of the issue of free access to public information, but is also based on the review of the everyday practice of the Administration, as well as on recent case-law and comparative study of Greek, European and American area. In this manner, conclusions can be extracted regarding the implementation of the existing legislation and the issues that have not been dealt and proposals are put forward in order to amend and regulate particular issues.

The study consists of six chapters. The stage of substantive examination is preceded by a few introductory remarks. The first chapter concerns the selection of the subject, the object and the purpose of the study (p. 1-10). The second chapter refers to the examination of the special relationship between the principle of transparency of the administration actions and the access to the public information, under the laws of Greece, Europe and third countries, and mainly the law of the U.S.A. The aim of the comparable analysis of the issue under examination is to locate common characteristics as well as differences in the manner that access to public information is dealt with by different legal systems, inside and outside the European Union. In the third chapter, the constitutional and legislative background of the information right in Greece is analyzed. More specifically, there is an analysis of the provisions of articles 5A § 1 and 2, 10 § 3 and 25 § 1 of the Constitution that establish the right of access to administrative documents. Furthermore, the relevant articles (article 5) of the Code of Administration Process are examined. The subject of the fourth chapter is to analyze the meaning of the “re-use of public sector information” that follows naturally from the access and concludes the participation of the citizen in this form of administration procedure. The fifth chapter examines the way the rules concerning the regulation of free public information and the protection of uninterrupted access to administration documents with simultaneous respect of the individual rights are implemented. The study is completed with the sixth chapter, where a summary of the most important issues is made and conclusions are drawn.