Ensuring the Free Online Access to National Legislation (RO0021)
Overview
At-a-Glance
Action Plan: Romania, Second Action Plan, 2014-2016
Action Plan Cycle: 2014
Status: Inactive
Institutions
Lead Institution: Ministry of Justice, IT Department
Support Institution(s): NA
Policy Areas
E-Government, Open Parliaments, Regulatory GovernanceIRM Review
IRM Report: Romania End-of-Term Report 2014-2016, Romania Progress Report 2014-2015 – Public Comment Version
Starred:
Yes
Early Results:
Major
Design i
Verifiable: Yes
Relevant to OGP Values: Access to Information , Technology
Implementation i
Description
Both at EU and national levels, an essential prerequisite for legal compliance is guaranteeing free access to legislation. In this context and in order to fit the European standards, it is necessary to ensure the free access of citizens to updated national legislation.
By the end of 2015, the Government aims to provide both Romanian and European residents (the latter through the N-Lex portal) with a national legislative database, handled by the Ministry of Justice, as an essential condition for knowing, complying with and enforcing the law in any field.
The portal will include a web service that will give the public access to the national legislation in the database, allowing its reuse.
IRM End of Term Status Summary
Commitment 3. Ensuring the Free Online Access to National Legislation
Commitment Text:
Ensuring the free online access to national legislation
1. The ministry will develop an electronic application to ensure the free access of citizens and other entities to the national legislative database
2. Testing of the developed electronic application
3. The legislative electronic application will be interconnected with the European legislative portal N-lex
Responsible institutions: Ministry of Justice, IT Department
Supporting institution(s): ---
Start date: April 2014 End date: June 2015
Commitment Aim:
This commitment aims to provide free public access to national legislation through an electronic application (e-portal). Prior to this commitment, access to legislation was limited. Interested parties either had to pay for a subscription to the Official Gazette or for a subscription to one of the private services allowing user access to consolidated legislation. Through Law 224/2009, anyone could access the electronic version of the Official Gazette free of charge—but only for 10 days after an issue was published.
Status
Midterm: Complete
The commitment was completed by the time of the midterm review. The electronic application was developed and successfully tested. Civil society and users offered suggestions to increase the portal’s functionality, and information technology (IT) teams have addressed these suggestions on an ongoing basis. The national legislation portal was also connected with the European N-Lex legislative portal, improving the interaction between European citizens and Romanian national legislation. However, stakeholders found it problematic that official national legislation is bought from the Official Gazette by a private enterprise and then sold to the Ministry of Justice for publication on the e-portal. There is also a general concern that the ministry does not have a permanent contract for the maintenance of the portal. Civil society organizations (CSOs) point to the need to change the legislation to allow access to the legislative database free of charge without having to buy the information from a third party.[Note 9: The N-Lex portal is available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/n-lex/index_ro. The national legislative portal is available at http://legislatie.just.ro/Public/Acasa. The Official Gazette, which is still only accessible for free for the first 10 days after publication, is available online at http://www.monitoruloficial.ro/index.php. ] For more information, please see the 2014–2015 IRM midterm report.
End of term: Complete
This starred commitment was completed by the time of the midterm review. However, further progress has taken place since then, addressing some of the concerns civil society raised at the midterm. For example, civil society observed that in order to publish legislative information, the Ministry of Justice was paying a private intermediary company for access to the Official Gazette, a public institution. Stakeholders found it problematic that in this process, a private company acts as an intermediary between two public institutions, purchasing legislative information from the National Gazette, and selling it to the Ministry of Justice. Some civil society activists have also indicated that the company is selling public legislative information to the Ministry of Justice at inflated prices.
There has been some confusion around this topic. Payments to the private company covered both access to the Official Gazette data, and linking newly published legislation to existing laws in order to publish the consolidated normative act. A new Law (195/2016) will establish free and permanent online access to the Official Gazette, solving the first CSO concern mentioned here. The legislative consolidation process will remain externalized and a private company will continue to be paid for these services.
Since the midterm, CSOs have also noticed there is a one-week delay between when laws are published in the Official Gazette and on the national legislation portal. There are two causes:[Note 10: These were presented during a discussion with participants at the OGP Club meeting on 15 September 2016.] first, information published in the portal must be obtained from the Official Gazette via the private distributor, and second, the new legislation must be consolidated with past modifications to the law before it is published on the national legislation portal. This process takes three to seven days to complete.
Did it open government?
Access to information: Major
Prior to this commitment, access to consolidated national legislation was only available for a fee, while access to the Official Gazette was only available free of cost for a 10 day window. Following the completion of this commitment, access to consolidated national legislation is available to all citizens free of cost, representing a major opening of government in terms of access to information. These changes bring citizens unlimited access to all legislation, and consolidate legislation for users. In addition, a newly created portal, the application program interface, allows stakeholders to access information on laws more easily and efficiently.[Note 11: Automated access to the national legislation portal is available using the information provided at this address: http://legislatie.just.ro/ServiciulWebLegislatie.htm. ]
Carried forward?
The commitment was completed before the end of the implementation period and has not been included in the next plan. Notably, civil society pressure to reduce the privatization of government processes reflects a wider shift in the public’s attitude.[Note 12: This is an ongoing issue, one private company suing the Ministry of Justice for implementing anti-competitive measures. For more details, see http://ogp.gov.ro/noutati/oportunitatea-publicarii-legislatiei-online-contestata-in-justitie/. ] The IRM researcher recommends developing the scope of the national legislation portal to include a specific section for legislation that is currently being drafted or under consultation. This could allow citizens and stakeholders to actively understand and engage with the policymaking process. The Senate, the Chamber of Deputies, and various ministries post some legislative proposals online, but the public would be better served if all proposals were available in a standard format via the same portal.
Commitments
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Standardize Public Consultation Practices
RO0048, 2018, E-Government
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Open Local Government
RO0049, 2018, Capacity Building
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Citizen Budgets
RO0050, 2018, Capacity Building
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Youth Participation
RO0051, 2018, Capacity Building
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Register of Civil Society Proposals
RO0052, 2018, E-Government
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Access to Information – Local
RO0053, 2018, Capacity Building
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Online Business Sector Information
RO0054, 2018, Capacity Building
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Digital Consular Services
RO0055, 2018, Capacity Building
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Transparency in the Funding of Political Parties
RO0056, 2018, Access to Information
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National Investment Fund Transparency
RO0057, 2018, Access to Information
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Civil Servant Training
RO0058, 2018, Capacity Building
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Raise Awareness About Corruption
RO0059, 2018, Capacity Building
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Transparency of Seized Assets
RO0060, 2018, Access to Information
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Access to Social Services
RO0061, 2018, E-Government
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Open Access to Research
RO0062, 2018, Access to Information
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Open Education
RO0063, 2018, Access to Information
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Evaluate Open Data
RO0064, 2018, Access to Information
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Open Data
RO0065, 2018, Access to Information
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Improving the Legal Framework and Practices Regarding Access to Public Interest Information
RO0030, 2016, Access to Information
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Centralized Publishing of Public Interest Information on the Single Gateway Transparenta.Gov.Ro
RO0031, 2016, Capacity Building
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Promoting Open Parliament Principles
RO0032, 2016, Capacity Building
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Improved Management of the Applications Submitted for Granting Citizenship
RO0033, 2016, Capacity Building
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Standardization of Transparency Practices in the Decision-Making Procedures
RO0034, 2016, Capacity Building
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Centralised Publication of Legislative Projects on the Single Gateway Consultare.Gov.Ro
RO0035, 2016, Capacity Building
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Citizens Budgets
RO0036, 2016, Capacity Building
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Improve Youth Consultation and Public Participation
RO0037, 2016, Capacity Building
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Subnational Open Government
RO0038, 2016, Capacity Building
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Promoting Transparency in the Decision-Making Process By Setting Up a Transparency Register (RUTI)
RO0039, 2016, Anti-Corruption
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Access to Performance Indicators Monitored in the Implementation of the National Anticorruption Strategy (SNA)
RO0040, 2016, Access to Information
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Improve Transparency in the Management of Seized Assets
RO0041, 2016, Access to Information
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Annual Mandatory Training of Civil Servants on Integrity Matters
RO0042, 2016, Anti-Corruption
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Improving Access to Cultural Heritage
RO0043, 2016, Capacity Building
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Open Data and Transparency in Education
RO0044, 2016, Access to Information
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Virtual School Library and Open Educational Resources
RO0045, 2016, Capacity Building
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Open Contracting
RO0046, 2016, Anti-Corruption
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Increasing the Quality and Quantity of Published Open Data
RO0047, 2016, Access to Information
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Publishing the Public Interest Information on a Single Government Portal: Transparenta.Gov.Ro
RO0019, 2014, Access to Information
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Making an Inventory of the Datasets Produced by the Ministries and Subordinate Agencies
RO0020, 2014, Access to Information
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Ensuring the Free Online Access to National Legislation
RO0021, 2014, E-Government
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Amending Law 109/2007 on the Re-Use of Public Sector Information
RO0022, 2014, Access to Information
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Opening Data Collected from the National Health System
RO0023, 2014, Access to Information
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Opening Data Collected from the Monitoring of Preventive Measures as Part of the National Anticorruption Strategy 2012-2015
RO0024, 2014, Access to Information
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Open Contracting
RO0025, 2014, Anti-Corruption
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Opening up Data Resulted from Publicly-Funded Research Projects
RO0026, 2014, E-Government
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Increasing the Quality and Quantity of Published Open Data
RO0027, 2014, Access to Information
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Human Resource Training in the Field of Open Data
RO0028, 2014, Access to Information
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Disseminating Information on the OGP Principles and Promoting the Open Data Concept in an Accessible Manner
RO0029, 2014, Public Participation
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Designating a Person Responsible for Publishing Open Data in Each Public Institution
RO0001, 2012, Access to Information
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Identifying Regulatory Needs, Logistical and Technical Solutions
RO0002, 2012, Access to Information
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Making an Inventory of Available (High-Value) Data-Sets
RO0003, 2012, Access to Information
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Priority Publishing on the Web Pages of Public Institutions of Specific Data-Sets
RO0004, 2012, Access to Information
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Initiating Pilot-Projects, in Partnerships
RO0005, 2012, Access to Information
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Organizing Public Debates on the Utility of Open Data, in Partnerships
RO0006, 2012, Access to Information
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Uniform, Machine-Readable Publishing Format for Open Data
RO0007, 2012, Access to Information
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Procedures for Publication of Data-Sets Based on Civil Society Recommendations
RO0008, 2012, Access to Information
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Procedures for Citizen Complaints Pertaining to Open Data
RO0009, 2012, Access to Information
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Consultation Mechanism Between Suppliers and Beneficiaries of Open Data
RO0010, 2012, Access to Information
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Creating a Rating System for the Assessment of High-Value Data-Sets
RO0011, 2012, Access to Information
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Routinely Publishing Specific Data-Sets on Web Pages of Public Institutions
RO0012, 2012, Access to Information
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Integrating Open Data from Public Institutions in a Single National Platform
RO0013, 2012, Access to Information
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Inventories of Data, in Order to Facilitate Public Access
RO0014, 2012, Access to Information
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Institute a Monitoring Mechanism of Compliance for Open Data
RO0015, 2012, Access to Information
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Stimulating the Market for Innovative Use of Open Data
RO0016, 2012, Access to Information
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Routinely Publishing Data-Sets on the National Platform, 25% High-Value
RO0017, 2012, Access to Information
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The Public Procurement Electronic System (SEAP). the Electronic Allocation System for Transports (SAET)/B.1 C) Expanding the On-Line Submission of Fiscal Forms. Ensuring the Free On-Line Access to National Legislation. Developing Electronic Tools to Manage Subpoenas and Facilitate Access Toinformation Regarding Legal Proceedings. Developing Electronic Tools to Manage the Procedures Related to Obtaining the Romanian Citizenship. Developing Electronic Tools to Manage the Procedures Related to the Creation of Non-Profit Legal Persons. the Integrated System for Electronic Access to Justice (SIIAEJ)
RO0018, 2012, Access to Justice