CGO: New access-to-information law will not change the practice of institutions that delay and stay silent

The Center for Civic Education (CGO) has announced that the new Law on Free Access to Information will not by itself change the practice of institutions that delay, stay silent, or only partially fulfill their obligations to the public, as Vijesti reports.

The organization’s statement, signed by the coordinator of the “Democratization and Europeanization” program, Mira Popović Trstenjak, was issued on the occasion of the International Day for Universal Access to Information, marked on September 28.

The new law, as CGO announced, entered into force on January 7, 2026, and has been fully applied since July 7, 2026. But the reform, according to the organization, began in a system burdened by administrative silence, thousands of complaints and administrative court cases, a growing number of unresolved cases, and insufficient capacity of the institutions protecting this right.

The figures cited by CGO, as Vijesti reports, are stark: during 2025, state bodies received 7,481 requests for free access to information, while the 15-day legal deadline was exceeded in 2,180 cases — 29 percent of them. The Agency for Personal Data Protection and Free Access to Information (AZLP) received 4,769 complaints and decided 4,103 cases — of the 2,330 upheld complaints, 1,209 (52 percent) concerned violations of procedural rules, that is, administrative silence. Meanwhile, the number of unresolved complaints rose from 90 in 2020 to 2,768 in 2025.

CGO also recalls the European Commission’s assessment in the Montenegro 2025 Report on the AZLP’s insufficient human, financial and IT capacity. The organization warns about Article 49 of the new law — under which, in an administrative lawsuit over administrative silence, each party bears its own costs — as well as the failure to adopt subordinate legislation within the foreseen deadline (July 7, 2026). Among the improvements, it singles out the broader catalogue of proactive information and fines for non-publication: from 500 to 20,000 euros for legal persons and from 200 to 2,000 euros for the responsible person.

“A good law is worth as much as it is implemented,” CGO stresses in the announcement. According to the organization, if bodies continue to stay silent, break deadlines, or publish documents that are hard to find and use, and if oversight and fines remain mere possibilities on paper, the reform will not produce the change the public has the right to expect.