EU: Ombudsman calls on the European Parliament to take action on Statewatch case
01 November 2001
The European Ombudsman, Mr Jacob Soderman, has sent a Special Report to the European Parliament calling on it to intervene in order to get the Council of the European Union (the 15 EU governments) to obey the Ombudsman’s findings that documents should be given to Statewatch.
Statewatch lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman concerning the Council failure to respond to requests for documents and information in July 2000. The first was a request to the Council for access to all the documents considered at a meeting of the Police Cooperation Working Party (Experts' meeting ? Interception of Telecommunications) on 3?4 September 1998 ? this concerned the discussion over a document, ENFOPOL 98, to extend telecommunications surveillance to cover e?mails and mobile phones. The Council tried to deny the existence of six documents listed in the "Outcome of proceedings" (the minutes) of the meeting.
The second aspect of the complaint concerns Statewatch's request for a list of the documents considered at a series of meetings in January 1999 including any documents not listed on the agenda or in the "Outcome of proceedings" such as "Room documents, non?papers, meetings documents, SN documents". Statewatch argued that, under the Code of Good Administrative Behaviour, citizens were entitled to have a list of all the documents considered so that they could see which views/positions were accepted and which were rejected. The Council failed to supply the lists. Moreover, Statewatch's complaint noted that the Council issued the following instruction when its public register of documents went online on 1 January 1999:
Confidential, Restreint, SN and non?paper documents will not be included in the public register. For this reason, from now on these documents will not be mentioned in official Council documents (in particular: on provisional agendas and in outcomes of proceedings).
The Ombudsman found that "the Council's failure to maintain a list or register of all documents put before the Council constituted maladministration and made a Recommendation to the Council. The Council responded by saying it accepted this Recommendation but the Ombudsman's Special Report concludes that its response:
raise doubts as to whether the draft recommendations will indeed be implemented
The Ombudsman view is that the "Council should establish such a list and make it available to citizens. This is vital so that citizens can use their right of access to documents properly". The report concludes that under the new Regulation on access to documents, which came into operation on 3 December the Council is obliged to place all documents on the public register.
This was the eighth successful complaint that Statewatch has lodged against the Council on access to EU documents. This is only the sixth Special Reports that the European Ombudsman has made to the European Parliament and is the strongest power available to him ? it usually follows the failure of one of the institutions to respond positively to his Recommendations to change their practices.
Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, commented:
The European Ombudsman has laid down a marker that the registers which the Council, Commission and European Parliament are obliged to make available to the public by 3 June 2002 have to contain information on all the documents considered at all levels of the decision?making process and the implementation of measures"
Heidi Hautala MEP wins again in Court of Justice
On 6 December the Court of Justice upheld the decision of the Court of First Instance in the case brought by Heidi Hautala MEP against the Council of the European Union for refusing to give access to its code on arms exports. The Court found that the Council had refused to consider, or grant, partial access to those sections of the document which were not covered by the exception allowing refusal.
The Court said that:
The Council must promote the widest possible access of the public to the documents