Ministry of Hiding Information

 Shorena Latatia

Access to public information is one of the most important values of the democratic society. The government is responsible to carry out active policy in this direction and nobody argues about it. However, it is fact that administrative institutions often do not react on the requests on public information.

Lawyer of the Human Rights Center Nestan Londaridze said that before the armed conflict of August in 2008 the Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation was one of those rare administrative institutions which usually replied to the letters though in delay. After the armed conflict the situation has changed. It is useless to request public information from the Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation now. They have not replied to plenty of request letters.

The inactivity of the ministry regarding the public information increases the urgency of the lack of information among IDPs. Very often, IDPs apply to the Human Rights Center for help to get public information from the ministry.

Lawyer of the Human Rights Center Nikoloz Legashvili sent two letters to the minister of refugees and accommodation Koba Subeliani and requested concrete public information.
The ministry left one of the letters without any reply at all; and in reply to the second letter, the ministry gave a very superficial reply. For example, the ministry did not answer the question “how many applications for IDP status are being discussed at the ministry and how many IDPs have not received single allowance.”

On June 29, 2010, the parliament of Georgia introduced amendments to the Law on the Structure, Authority and Activities of the Government of Georgia; according to the amendments, the ministry of refugees and accommodation has new name – Ministry of the Accommodation of IDPs from Occupied Territories and Refugees.

The new name underlines the occupied territories and internally displaced people. However, it is fact that the ministry has and releases little information about IDPs.