Establishing a Legal Framework That Regulates Communication and Interaction Within Public Sector and Between Public Structures and Citizens with Usage of ICT (TN0007)

Using ICT to communicate and interact within the public administration and between public structures and their citizens can provide practical mechanisms to follow up how administrative files are handled. Technology can then consecrate accountability, which is a fundamental principle of open government.
To this end, a legal framework that regulates communication and interaction within the public sector and between public structures and citizens will be established. Such legislation will provide more legal value to electronic documents, and so, encourage public structures to go paperless.

7: Legal framework to regulate ICT communication and interaction

Commitment Text: Using ICT to communicate and interact within the public administration and between public structures and their citizens can provide practical mechanisms to follow up how administrative files are handled. Technology can then consecrate accountability, which is a fundamental principle of open government.

To this end, a legal framework that regulates communication and interaction within the public sector and between public structures and citizens will be established. Such legislation will provide more legal value to electronic documents, and so, encourage public structures to go paperless.

Responsible Institution(s): The Secretariat of State in Charge of Governance and Civil Service (e-Gov Unit)

Start Date: July 2014 End Date: June 2016

Commitment aim

This commitment sought to draft a law to allow and incentivise the use of ICTs in government-government and citizen-government communication. Tunisia has no legal framework that regulates electronic exchanges and administrative procedures between citizens and public institutions, or among government agencies. Consequently, most government services, procedures, and interactions with citizens are still conducted offline, leading to inefficiencies.

Status

Midterm: Limited

According to the government’s self-assessment report, the law regulating the electronic provision of government documents was drafted with civil society. However, it was not published on an official website, and no CSO from the OGP joint committee was aware of consultations regarding the law. For more information, please see the 2014-2015 IRM Midterm Progress Report.^{[Note 28: OGP, Tunisia IRM Midterm Progress Report 2014-15, http://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2001/01/Tunisia2014-15_IRM%20Progress%20Report_Eng.pdf.]}

End of term: Limited

There was no further progress on the implementation of this commitment.^{[Note 29: Interview with OGP focal point team members, Rim Garnaoui and Chiraz Ben Tahar, 9 September 2016.]} The government’s self-assessment states that the draft law was submitted to the Council of Ministers for approval.

Did it open government?

Public accountability: Did not change

The commitment lacked sufficient details concerning measureable milestones. A legal framework to regulate ICT communication and interaction could help to centralise administrative procedures, allow citizens to monitor the progress of their requests, and hold the institutions to account for execution time and service provision. Given the limited progress, however, the commitment did not lead to any change in government behaviour regarding public accountability.

Carried forward?

This commitment was not carried forward to the second action plan.  The IRM researcher recommends that the government puts forward commitments that clearly articulate mechanisms that citizens can use for holding public officials accountable.