Four basic legal rights regarding access to information of public importance (Article 5):
- the right of the applicant to be informed whether the public authorities hold have specific information, i.e. whether it is otherwise accessible;
- the right of the applicant to have the information of public interest accessible by providing free of charge insight in a document containing the information;
- the right of the applicant to obtain a copy of the document containing the requested information, upon reimbursing the necessary costs of copying the document and
- the right of the applicant to receive a copy of the document sent to the address by mail, fax, electronically or otherwise, upon reimbursing the costs of sending
If the requested information is already available to the public, the applicant is entitled to be informed by the body about where and when it was published.
If the document contains information that the public has no legitimate interest to know, the applicant has the right to access to other parts of the documents.
