Establishment of Electronic Registry for Public Notification and Consultation (AL0047)

Creating the registry for public notification and consultation belongs to the implementation of Law No. 146/2014 "On public notification and consultation". In this context, this system is designed as a section in the form of a unique interactive virtual forum of government services e-Albania.al. Any decision-making and legislative institution, through a user that will be act as coordinator of the institution, and the cast will publish for consultation with citizens and interest groups of every draft or draft prior to its adoption. The inclusion of this unique portal registry e-Albania.al government, and the inclusion of public consultation system within it will increase the exposure and access of citizens to the system. This investment is aimed at increasing transparency and increasing public engagement in governance to meet the needs for creating the system functional for public notification and consultation. Status quo or problem addressed by the commitment Creating Registry for public notification and consultation comes under Law no. 146/2014 "On public notification and consultation". The system is conceived as a section in the form of an interactive virtual forum on e-Albania portal. Any decision-making and legislative institution, through a user that will act as coordinator of the institution, and the cast will publish for consultation with citizens and interest groups of any decision or law prior to its adoption. The existence of unique portal e-government Albania, and the inclusion of public consultation system within the e-Albania will increase the exposure and access of citizens to the system. This investment is aimed at increasing transparency and increasing public engagement in governance to meet the needs of the system functional for creating Notification and Public Consultation. Main Objective Through this registry, access and opportunity of communication of all parties concerned will be provided. This form ensures and strengthens equality in terms of access to information and service, taking into consideration the specific needs to certain individuals or groups. This commitment also aimed at increasing transparency and increasing public engagement in governance.

4. Public notification and consultation registry

Commitment Text:

Title: Establishment of electronic registry for public notification and consultation

Creating the registry for public notification and consultation belongs to the implementation of Law No. 146/2014 'On public notification and consultation'.

In this context, this system is designed as a section in the form of a unique interactive virtual forum of government services e-Albania.al. Any decision-making and legislative institution, through a user that will be act as coordinator of the institution, and the cast will publish for consultation with citizens and interest groups of every draft or draft prior to its adoption.

The inclusion of this unique portal registry e-Albania.al government, and the inclusion of public consultation system within it will increase the exposure and access of citizens to the system.

This investment is aimed at increasing transparency and increasing public engagement in governance to meet the needs for creating the system functional for public notification and consultation.

Through this registry, access and opportunity of communication of all parties concerned will be provided. This form ensures and strengthens equality in terms of access to information and service, taking into consideration the specific needs to certain individuals or groups. This commitment also aimed at increasing transparency and increasing public engagement in governance.

Responsible institution: National Agency for Information Society (NAIS)

Supporting institution(s): Minister of State for Innovation and Public Administration; Line ministries

Start date: 2016 End date: 2018

Context and Objectives

Citizens’ involvement in policy and decision making is an important challenge and opportunity for participatory democracy in Albania. In the past few years Albania has taken important steps to involve citizens in central and local level governance. The Law 'On public notification and consultation' asks all public authorities to consult citizens on draft legislation or strategic documents and appoint coordinators for public consultations. The adoption of the law establishing the National Council for Civil Society (November 2015) provided the framework for more structured consultations with civil society organizations (CSOs). However, at the time of writing, the National Council for Civil Society is yet to be a proactive forum.

The European Commission (EC) report on Albania, published in 2016, concluded that effective implementation of the laws on the right to information and public consultations remains a challenge, especially at local level.^{[Note72: EC report on Albania, https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/sites/near/files/pdf/key_documents/2016/20161109_report_albania.pdf. ]} In 2016, only 22 percent of Albanians reported that they have been part of public consultations at the local level.^{[Note73: 'Audit of political engagement in Albania' (IDM 2016) page 24, https://www.ndi.org/sites/default/files/IDM%20Audit%20of%20Political%20Engagement%20in%20Albania.pdf. ]} Civil society representatives and the public at large remain skeptical about public consultations, which they consider to be formal processes carried out by state institutions and do not reflect their feedback at the final phase. A portal for public consultation was created in 2015, following the adoption of the Law 'On public notification and consultation.' This portal has been monitored by civil society actors who have pointed out a number of concerns. ResPublica, a non-governmental organization based in Tirana, reports that between November 2015 and May 2016 only 5 percent of monitored public authorities had appointed a Public Consultation Coordinator, and only 8 percent of monitored public authorities had prepared public registers on draft legislation or other acts that are subject to public consultations. On the portal http://www.konsultimipublik.gov.al/, ResPublica reported that the website was online, but no Register was functional.^{[Note74: 'Public consultations – Challenges of enforcing the law in the first year' (Res Publica June 2016), http://www.respublica.org.al/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/konsultimi-publik-sfidat-e-vitit-te-pare-te-zbatimit-te-ligjit.pdf. ]}

The inclusion of a new public consultation portal in this context represents an important measure to increase public participation in decision making by using information and communication technology. If fully implemented, this commitment would significantly improve transparency of institutions and its processes by increasing public engagement, which the IRM researcher considers to be moderate potential impact. Additionally, the portal would enable public access to information on draft legislation at different stages before it reaches the Parliament and subsequently improve civic participation by providing the public with a consultation system. This interactive forum is relevant to the OGP values of access to information, civic participation, and technology and innovation.

The commitment clearly identifies its intention to establish a portal for public notification and consultation of draft legislation; however, it does not list measurable steps that would cumulatively lead to the establishment of this electronic registry. Therefore, the specificity of this commitment is low.

Completion

The registry for public notification and consultation was updated and integrated with the e-Albania portal, on time, in the first year of the action plan. The portal includes a section on consultations with citizens and a separate section for consultations with experts. The IRM researcher was not provided with any information on the number of users registered with the portal.

The interlink with e-Albania serves as a user registration and identification for the portal. No registration is required to access the acts under public consultation procedure at http://www.konsultimipublik.gov.al. However, registration is compulsory in order to comment on the acts under consultation.

Early Results

Although the implementation of this commitment was carried out on time, its results are disappointing. No feedback (comments) from citizens or experts was received through this portal on any of the 15 draft laws and draft strategies which were put out for public consultation during 2017. There are several reasons for the low level of feedback: many participants at the focus groups organized by the IRM researcher were not aware of the portal. The few who were informed (representatives of local CSOs) suggested that the main reasons for limited feedback were the condition to register with e-Albania and a lack of public awareness about the portal.

Next Steps

Despite the missing results and impact in the past year, the portal http://www.konsultimipublik.gov.al remains an important online public consultation opportunity. Nevertheless, some additional steps are still required in order to boost its use and usefulness.

· For the portal to be more successful, it needs to be more broadly promoted among citizens. CSOs have used social media to inform citizens about the portal. However, the IRM researcher recommends that the public campaign also use traditional media.

· To improve the public consultation framework, the government needs to undertake a bigger effort by developing statutory procedures governing public engagement in policymaking. When publishing draft legislation, the government needs to provide adequate timeframes for consultations, establish clear rules to guide consultation, and provide feedback on citizens’ input.

4. Public notification and consultation registry

Commitment Text:

Title: Establishment of electronic registry for public notification and consultation

Creating the registry for public notification and consultation belongs to the implementation of Law No. 146/2014 "On public notification and consultation".

In this context, this system is designed as a section in the form of a unique interactive virtual forum of government services e-Albania.al. Any decision-making and legislative institution, through a user that will be act as coordinator of the institution, and the cast will publish for consultation with citizens and interest groups of every draft or draft prior to its adoption.

The inclusion of this unique portal registry e-Albania.al government, and the inclusion of public consultation system within it will increase the exposure and access of citizens to the system.

This investment is aimed at increasing transparency and increasing public engagement in governance to meet the needs for creating the system functional for public notification and consultation.

Through this registry, access and opportunity of communication of all parties concerned will be provided. This form ensures and strengthens equality in terms of access to information and service, taking into consideration the specific needs to certain individuals or groups. This commitment also aimed at increasing transparency and increasing public engagement in governance.

Responsible institution: National Agency for Information Society (NAIS)

Supporting institution(s): Minister of State for Innovation and Public Administration; Line ministries

Start date: 2016.................... End date: 2018

Commitment Aim:

Following the Law “On public notification and consultation” from 2014, a portal for public consultation on draft legislation (http://www.konsultimipublik.gov.al) was created in 2015, but was not fully functional before the adoption of this commitment. In this context, interlinking this public consultation tool with the e-Albania.al portal was seen as an opportunity to increase its exposure. This in turn would improve public access to information on draft legislation at different stages before it reaches Parliament and citizens’ follow-up of decision making.

Status

Midterm: Complete

The registry for public notification and consultation http://www.konsultimipublik.gov.al was updated and integrated with the e-Albania portal (both portals already existed prior to the commitment). The new, integrated portal includes a section on consultations with citizens and a separate section for consultations with experts. The IRM researcher was not provided with any information on the number of users registered.

The interlink with e-Albania serves as a user registration and identification for the consultation portal. No registration is required to access the acts under public consultation procedure at http://www.konsultimipublik.gov.al. However, registration is compulsory through e-Albania.al in order to comment on the acts under consultation. Please see the IRM 2017 midterm report for more details. [27]

This commitment was completed by midterm, with the establishment of an electronic registry for public notification and consultation through the integration of http://www.konsultimipublik.gov.al and e-Albania.

Did It Open Government?

Access to Information: Marginal

Civic Participation: Did Not Change

Although implementation of this commitment was carried out on time, its results did not deliver significant changes in government practice on public consultations, with limited progress on access to information. In 2018, the government continued to update the portal with new draft acts for public consultations. Specifically, another 42 such acts were published between late 2017 and October 2018. This brings the number of draft legislations for consultations with citizens to 59, which is a major increase, compared to only 15 draft acts reported by IRM in 2017.

While publishing the draft laws on this integrated portal improves access to information to a certain extent, the parliament’s website (http://www.parlament.al/Projektligje/IndexList) offers a much more complete database of draft acts which are used by interest groups to familiarize themselves and prepare their position during consultations at parliamentary procedures. However, that database does not offer user-friendly features such as submitting and publishing online the comments, opinions and recommendations on the draft legislative acts, as is the case with konsultimipublik.gov.al portal. On the other hand, the portal establishes good practice of publishing draft laws and strategies in the preparatory phase and prior to parliamentary adoption procedures. However, the low engagement of the public, citizens and interest groups with the portal suggests that it has not significantly improved the quality or extent of information being disclosed. Hence the commitment has led to marginal improvements in access to information.

Regarding civic participation, no feedback (comments) from citizens or experts was received through the new portal on any of the draft laws or strategies which were put out for public consultation during 2017 and 2018. The few participants of focus groups (representatives of local CSOs) organized by the IRM researcher suggested that the main reasons for limited feedback on draft laws were the condition to register with e-Albania and a lack of public awareness of the portal. According to National Agency for Information Society (AKSHI), login via e-Albania was necessary to assure that all comments came from real people and not fake accounts. [28]

Although the portal created some opportunity for influencing lawmaking, the barriers (such as registering with E-Albania) limited the usability of such spaces. Therefore, the commitment’s implementation did not bring any changes to civic participation.

Carried Forward?

By the time of writing this report, Albania had not published a new action plan. This report echoes the recommendations of the 2017 progress report. The portal http://www.konsultimipublik.gov.al remains an important online public consultation opportunity, which would be useful if it were more broadly promoted through a public campaign with the use of traditional media. According to the AKSHI, the Agency has suggested the Prime Minister’s Office to ask the ministries to publish all legal consultative initiatives on the portal and require ministries to conduct notification campaigns for using the public consultation portal. It all suggested the PMOs to publish its own draft legislation on social media/websites and invite citizens during their public statements to comment on draft laws and decisions that it publishes. [29]

To improve the public consultation framework, the government should undertake a bigger effort by developing statutory procedures governing public engagement in policymaking. When publishing draft legislation, the government should provide adequate timeframes for consultations, establish clear rules to guide consultation, and provide feedback on citizens’ input.

[27] IRM Albania Progress Report 2016-2017, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2001/01/Albania_Mid-Term_2016-2018_EN_for-pub-comm.pdf

[28] The IRM received this information from the National Agency for Information Society (AKSHI) in Albania during the pre-publication period of this report.

[29] Ibid