“The majority of our elected officials do not respect the right of access to public information” | EUROtoday

Dspending on luxurious clothes, perfumes or youngsters’s gadgets… For greater than a yr now, the information has revealed, at common intervals, controversial however authorized mandate charges. As the municipal elections method, we preserve that the highlighting of some payments mustn’t obscure the actual scandal that our affiliation observes every day on madada.fr: the persistent opacity which surrounds our establishments.

Behind every controversy over an expense report hides a a lot deeper drawback: the refusal silently opposed by nearly all of our elected officers and administrations, in contradiction with the legislation on the correct of entry to public data.

This proper of entry is outdated: it was created in 1978 by the legislation which created the Commission for Access to Administrative Documents accountable for evaluating, earlier than a attainable authorized motion, whether or not a secret may oppose the precept of free entry to public data. We may even hint this precept of transparency even additional again in time: article 15 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 specifies that “the company has the right to demand an account from any public agent of its administration”.

Ostrich coverage

While the Constitutional Council has acknowledged the constitutional worth of this proper since 2020, it’s right this moment extensively flouted. The knowledge collected on our associative platform exhibits this: of the three,000 expense report requests made so far on Ma Dada, a big majority led to rejection. In 75% of instances, the administrations didn’t even reply, taking refuge in a silence legally equal, after a month, to a “implicit refusal”.

This burying its head coverage, generally motivated by political calculation or just by the absence of administrative circuits targeted on transparency, hinders the analysis of public insurance policies and prevents residents from making an knowledgeable judgment on topics which are generally key to public debate, such because the atmosphere, well being or training.

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https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2025/12/29/la-majorite-de-nos-elus-ne-respecte-pas-le-droit-d-acces-aux-informations-publiques_6659704_3232.html