Turkish Right to Information Blog

Archive for April 29th, 2008

Article 10 of the Right to Information Act 2003 provides that the public authorities may charge the applicants for the cost of the procedure. This is to be added as an income to their budget and the cost would be proportionate to the expenses occurred by the public authorities. It is explained in article 22 of the related Regulations on the Application of the Right to Information Act that the tariff of the cost would be determined by the Ministry of Finance. However, the public institutions are not allowed to demand any cost for the first 10 pages of documents containing the information requested by the applicants as well as the related postal charges. The public institutions are also not allowed to charge for access to documentation in electronic format.

The lack of clarity within the legislation and the related regulations led into some confusion about the cost issue and a decision of the Right to Information Assessment (Review) Council led into an amendment of article 22(1) of the Regulations on the Application of the Right to Information Act in November 2005. It was reaffirmed that there would be no cost on the first 10 pages of documents containing the information requested by the applicants as well as the related postal charges. However, proportionate charges could be applicable for anything beyond 10 pages including for electronic documents if the public authorities had to conduct research, and spend time for copying and reviewing, and compiling the information requested. They can also charge for postage if the documents are sent via post.

The details of the policy were announced in February 2006 when the Ministry of Finance published the tariff and the right to information application charges policy. Subsequently, this policy came into force in March 2006. According to the new policy, there is no obligation to charge, and the public authorities are free to decide whether they would require the applicants to pay for the information requested. However, if the public authorities decide to charge for the right to information requests, they then need to follow the Ministry of Finance policy. The policy clearly establishes that the charges are introduced to recover a proportion of the costs incurred to provide the requested information. The new charges policy was not introduced for the public iauthorities to make a profit, and should, as a matter of policy, not be more than the cost to obtain and gather the information. It is provided that photocopy and printing charges would be 50 Yeni Kuruş (0.5 YTL) per page (both for A4 and A3 size papers) but no charges would be applicable for the first 10 pages of any document.

Additionally, the public authorities may charge for research, reviewing, and compiling, but this should in any case be no more than 5YTL per page (no charges would be applicable for the first 10 pages of any document), and no more than 100YTL in total regardless of the length of the document. The policy also provides that there may be some additional costs if the information requested may not be provided electronically, or on paper. In terms of communication charges, no charges would be applicable for the first 10 pages of any document. However, public authorities may apply relevant postal charges, and 50 Yeni Kuruş (0.5 YTL) per page if the applicants require the documents to be faxed to them.

Finally, and more importantly, the Ministry of Finance policy established that the public authorities will not charge for documents that are provided electronically to the applicants regardless of the length of the documents. However, they may still charge for research, reviewing and compiling.

The application of the Ministry of Finance policy was confirmed in a decision of the Right to Information Assessment (Review) Council in March 2006 with regards to an unreasonable amount asked by an educational authority in Samsun. The Council reminded that the amount of 3,149YTL asked by the authority for research, reviewing, and compiling, was unreasonable and the maximum amount that could be charged in such a scenario was no more than 100YTL subject to no charges would be applicable for the first 10 pages of any document principle as laid down by the Ministry of Finance policy.