Slovak Republic Transitional Results Report 2019-2021

The Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More is a global partnership that brings together government reformers and civil society leaders to create action plans that make governments more inclusive, responsive, and accountable. Action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... commitments may build on existing efforts, identify new steps to complete ongoing reforms, or initiate an entirely new area. OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective ... monitors all action plans to ensure governments follow through on commitments. Civil society and government leaders use the evaluations to reflect on their progress and determine if efforts have impacted people’s lives.

The IRM has partnered with Mária Žuffová to carry out this evaluation. The IRM aims to inform ongoing dialogue around the development and implementation of future commitments. For a full description of the IRM’s methodology, please visit https://www.opengovpartnership.org/about/independent-reporting-mechanism.

This report covers the implementation of Slovak Republic’s fourth action plan for 2019–2021. In 2021, the IRM will implement a new approach to its research process and the scope of its reporting on action plans, approved by the IRM Refresh.^[1] The IRM adjusted its implementation reports for 2018–2020 action plans to fit the transition process to the new IRM products and enable the IRM to adjust its workflow in light of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on OGP country processes.

Action Plan Implementation

The IRM Transitional Results Report assesses the status of the action plan’s commitments and the results from their implementation at the end of the action plan cycle. This report does not re-visit the assessments for “VerifiabilityOGP commitments should be clear and specific enough to enable measurement of their progress. Verifiable commitments include specific activities that can be monitored. Following an action plan’s subm...,” “RelevanceAccording to the OGP Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should include a clear open government lens. Specifically, they should advance at least one of the OGP values: transparency, citizen partic...,” or “Potential Impact.” The IRM assesses those three indicators in IRM design reports. For more details on each indicator, please see Annex I in this report.

General highlights and results

Slovak Republic’s fourth action plan contained eleven commitments. These included, among others, commitments to publish government datasets in open formats, increase access to beneficial ownershipDisclosing beneficial owners — those who ultimately control or profit from a business — is essential for combating corruption, stemming illicit financial flows, and fighting tax evasion. Technical... More data, encourage the creation of open educational sources, develop a national strategy for open science, and to strengthen collaboration between government and CSOs. Most of the commitments in this action plan are relevant to OGP values (access to information, civic participation, and public accountabilityAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, public accountability occurs when ”rules, regulations, and mechanisms in place call upon government actors to justify their actions, act upon criticisms ... More) and build upon previous efforts.

Four (36%) of the commitments were fully completed, three (27%) were substantially completed, and three (27%) achieved only limited completion by the end of the implementation period. It was not possible to establish evidence of progress for Commitment 4, which aimed to “ensure full disclosure of beneficial ownership data.” The percentage of fully completed commitments was lower than in the previous action plan. Progress was hampered by several factors: the change of government after the 2020 election and accompanying staff changes on all levels within ministries created discontinuity (see Commitment 8); the COVID-19 pandemic delayed or affected some of the activities that were intended to be in person, such as training programmes (see Commitments 5 and 7);[2] insufficient ownership (see CommitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... 5), and inadequate interagency collaboration and changes in competencies (see Commitment 10).

Three commitments were assessed as noteworthy in the IRM design report.[3] However, only Commitment 2, to publish open government data and APIs, was complete at the end of the implementation period. Commitment 5 (supporting the creation and maintenance of online educational resources) has seen only limited completionImplementers must follow through on their commitments for them to achieve impact. For each commitment, OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) evaluates the degree to which the activities outlin... More as in previous action plans. As mentioned above, it is not possible to establish evidence of progress for Commitment 4.

Although the completion rate is lower than for the previous action plan, some commitments might help improve government practice over time. Action plans in Slovak Republic are legally binding documents at the central government level. As was mentioned in previous IRM reports, the legal commitment is a critical element of the OGP process in Slovak Republic, as it helps ensure that public agencies take commitments seriously and try to demonstrate progress. Compared to the pre-OGP period, some ministries are now more used to organising inclusive, participatory processes when creating a new policy due to iterative commitments in this area (see Commitments 2, 6, and 7). Similarly, the volume of information and data that the government publishes proactively has substantially increased (see Commitment 1).

COVID-19 pandemic impact on implementation

Some of the government measures adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic restricted human rights and civil liberties, as detailed in the IRM design report.[4] For example, foreigners without a valid permanent or temporary residence permit in Slovak Republic were prohibited from entering the country and even some Slovak citizens returning from abroad were denied entry to the country. The preventative measures to tackle the pandemic were constantly changing throughout the autumn and winter pandemic waves of 2020.[5]

The pandemic has not had a significant effect on the OGP process, as the Office of the Plenipotentiary (the government point of contact) adapted to the new situation relatively quickly, and together with their partners, continued to offer meetings and events online.[6] While online participation can exclude some groups of citizens and actors, this was inevitable given COVID-19 restrictions. However, some events were postponed for several months (e.g., Open Government Week, initially planned for May 2020).[7] During the COVID-19 pandemic, the action plan[8] was already mid-way through implementation, so priorities set in 2019 did not change in response to the pandemic. However, the Office of the Plenipotentiary used this extraordinary situation to highlight the role of civil society and volunteerism[9] and argued for the importance of implementing some OGP commitments, such as access to open educational resources[10] and high-quality pandemic data in open formats.[11]

[1] For more information, see: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/process/accountability/about-the-irm/irm-refresh/.

[2] Office of the Plenipotentiary, “Koronavírus ovplyvňuje aj parti rozpočty” [Coronavirus also affects participatory budgets] (17 Apr. 2020), https://bit.ly/3aGQ9Yq.

[3]See Mária Žuffová, Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM): Slovakia Design Report 2019–2021 (OGP, 30 Oct. 2020), https://bit.ly/3uMEjHI.

[4]Id.; Max Steuer, “Slovak Constitutionalism and the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Implications of State Panic” (IACL-AIDC Blog, 9 Apr. 2020), https://bit.ly/2ZVBs1I; and Martin Husovec, “Dobré a zlé správy o sledovaní občanov na Slovensku” [Good and bad news about state surveillance] (dennikn.sk, 26 Mar. 2020), https://bit.ly/3cjO45o.

[5] Dalibor Roháč, “What Happened to Slovakia’s Coronavirus Success Story?” (Foreign Policy, 16 Mar. 2021), https://bit.ly/3ByjCkz.

[6]See a discussion of webinars on open science together with the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information at Office of the Plenipotentiary, “Stratégia otvorenej vedy na Slovensku: S Centrom vedecko-technických informácií SR pokračujeme v aktívnej spolupráci” [Open Science Strategy in Slovakia: We continue to actively cooperate with the Centre of Scientific and Technical Information of the Slovak Republic] (22 May 2020), https://bit.ly/3bx9cao.

[7] Office of the Plenipotentiary, “Týždeň otvoreného vládnutia 2020: Staňte sa súčasťou najväčšieho podujatia k otvorenému vládnutiu na Slovensku!” [Open Government Week 2020: Become a part of the biggest open government event in Slovakia!] (19 Feb. 2020), https://bit.ly/3bnw9Lz; Office of the Plenipotentiary, “Týždeň otvoreného vládnutia 2020: Aktuálne informácie v kontexte súčasnej situácie” [Open Government Week 2020: Information in the context of the current situation] (3 Apr. 2020), https://bit.ly/2KlJ054.

[8] Office of the Plenipotentiary, Open Government Partnership National Action Plan of the Slovak Republic 2020 – 2021 (OGP, 5 Dec. 2019), https://bit.ly/3bhUmmu.

[9] Office of the Plenipotentiary, “Vyhlásenie splnomocnenca vlády SR pre rozvoj občianskej spoločnosti v súvislosti so súčasnou mimoriadnou situáciou” [Statement of the Plenipotentiary in Connection with the Current Emergency] (17 Mar. 2020), https://bit.ly/3nR6i5Q.

[10] Office of the Plenipotentiary, “Otvorené vzdelávacie zdroje ako nástroj podpory vzdelávania žiakov a študentov počas uzavretia škôl – zoznam zaujímavých odkazov” [Open educational resources as a tool to support the education of pupils and students during school closure – a list of interesting links] (12 Mar. 2020), https://bit.ly/3CwW7ts.

[11] Office of the Plenipotentiary, “Sprievodca otvoreným vládnutím v čase COVID-19: Otvorené data” [Guide to Open Government in Times of COVID-19: Open Data] (13 May 2020), https://bit.ly/3pVDr36.