In the course of the last several months, information regarding the Feasibility Study for the Project of the Construction of the Waterway MORAVA CHANNEL have been the subject of increased public interest. The Ministry of Natural Resources, Mining and Spatial Planning has denied access to the said document to information seekers who have formally addressed it in this regard. For this reason several, more or less the same complaints have been filed to the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection by the journalists, i.e. non-governmental organizations.

In considering the complaints the Commissioner has taken the stand that the complaints are grounded, that the right to access of the public is indisputable, pursuant to both the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance and the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention). The Commissioner has concluded that the facts and the reasons which the Ministry has recalled do not constitute statutory grounds to justify the denial of access to the requested information.

The relevant legal actual facts (which are identical in several cases that have been considered) are elaborated in this ruling of the Commissioner.