Kiri

Dear Sir/Madam,

1.     Please find the answers to your questions concerning national legislation in Estonia below.

2.    

3.     Has your country requested and granted access to official documents on the basis of the Convention (applying the interpretation of the Convention) after ratification of the Convention (including adaptation of the national legislation), thereby broadening the content of the national legislation applied in practice?  If yes, please briefly describe the case (including what official documents they were - type, form, etc.).

Estonia has not requested nor granted access to official documents on the basis of the Convention after ratification of the Convention, thereby broadening the content of the national legislation applied in practice.

The Constitution of Estonia[1] provides that everyone enjoys the right to receive information for public dissemination (§44(1)) and lays down the duty of all state and local authorities to provide information about their activities to Estonian citizens pursuant to a procedure provided for by law (§44 (2)) as well as to foreigners or stateless persons unless otherwise provided by law (§44 (4)).

By the Constitution and the Public Information Act[2] granting access to official documents is a rule and preventing access, i.e. applying a restriction, is an exception. Even if an official document is classified for internal use, access to it may be requested. In that case the authority holding the requested information has an obligation to evaluate every time if and in which extend it can give access to requested information in that specific case.

4.     Has your country, when ratifying the Convention or after ratifying the Convention, needed to make changes to the national legislation regarding the content of the term “official document” (such as their nature, form) and what changes were made? Is this term currently aligned with the bodies supervising the implementation of the Convention? Please indicate in the reply how the State has defined the content of the term “official document” in the national legislation in force.

Estonia has not made any changes to the national legislation regarding the content of the term “official document”.

In Estonian legislation “official documents” are understood as public information. According to § 3 (1) of the Public Information Act, public information is information which is recorded and documented in any manner and on any medium and which is obtained or created upon performance of public duties provided by law or legislation issued on the basis thereof. According to § 3¹ (1) Public Information Act, such public information, the public use of which is not restricted by law or pursuant to the procedure established by law, is named open data. Restricted information is information to which access is restricted by law (§ 34 (1)).

Therefore, public information is divided into two categories:

1) Open data – public information, the public use of which is not restricted by law;

2) Restricted data – information to which access is restricted pursuant to the procedure established by law

It is marked in the Baseline Evaluation Report on the implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on access to official documents (CETS No. 205 –Tromsø Convention)[3] that the qualification “upon performance of public duties provided by law” is not provided for by Article 1, paragraph 2, sub-paragraph, b of the Convention and may be perceived to unduly limit the scope of the Public Information Act. Therefore, AIG considers that §3(1) of the Public Information Act is not fully in line with this provision of the Convention and recommends that the Estonia reconsiders this qualification.

Regarding this indication, Estonia has explained that this qualification (“upon performance of public duties provided by law”) seeks to ensure that the Public Information Act applies to legal and natural persons, insofar as they are entrusted with a task of providing a service in the public interest and the provision of this service is ultimately a responsibility of the state or the provider of this service is governed by public law. In addition, under this qualification, private correspondence of public officials which is not connected to their public duties is excluded from the scope of the Public Information Act (§3¹(1)).

5.     Whether your State has received objections from the authorities supervising the implementation of the Convention regarding the implementation of the Convention (e.g. on the practice of applying the Convention or the non-compliance of national legislation)? If so, please describe, as far as possible, their content.

Estonia has not received objections from the authorities supervising the implementation of the Convention regarding the implementation of the Convention, but there are some recommendations concerning national legislation made by the AIG which can be found in Baseline Evaluation Report on the implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on access to official documents (CETS No. 205 –Tromsø Convention).

[1] https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/530122020003/consolide

2 https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/503052023003/consolide

3 https://rm.coe.int/baseline-evaluation-report-estonia/1680b0f634

Sincerely,

Helen Uustalu

The Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Estonia

Suur-Ameerika 1, Tallinn

Estonia

From: TM eld <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2024 9:35 AM
To: Esindus Strasbourgis üldaadress (e-mail) <[email protected]>; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]; TM eld <[email protected]>
Subject: Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official documents_use of term “official document”