The organization “Young Barristers” published the results of the monitoring on the issue: “"Citizens in the public policy process of the government in 2014".
The goal of the organization was to examine publicity of the relationship between citizens and ministries, to determine the ratios of the application of citizens towards public agencies, analysis of ministries responses, statistics and solution rate of administrative complaints. To receive the information the organization has addressed to 19 Ministries of the Government. Monitoring results are relating to the period from 1 January 2014 to 10 December.
In the monitoring framework of the monitoring, 18 Ministries of the Government has cooperated with the organization. Among them only 11 provided the requested complete information, while responses of 7 ministries concerned only on the indicator of public information requesting from citizens and not the general statistics in the ministries. Citizens application data is not provided by the Ministry of Justice of Georgia, to which the organization appealed again on 6 January 2015 to participate in the monitoring. Accordingly, the organization will present to society results of 18 ministries.
According to the monitoring, 70 422 citizens have applied to 11 Ministries by the letter, statement or the request for public information. Sequence of applications are as follows: Ministry of Labour Health and Social Affairs of Georgia – 20613, Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia – 19495, Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia – 15096, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia – 9461, Ministry of Corrections and Legal Assistance of Georgia – 2055, Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection of Georgia – 1501, Ministry of Energy of Georgia – 1171, Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure of Georgia -728, Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs of Georgia - 235, Office of the State Minister of Georgia on European & Euro-Atlantic Integration - 45, Office of the State Minister of Georgia For Diaspora Issues – 22.
According to the monitoring, only 7 ministries provided public information statistics according to Articles 37 and 40 of the General Administrative Code, which in total is 4371 appeal. In this regard, there is the following result: Ministry of Defense of Georgia – 2862, Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia - 857, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Protection of Georgia - 201, Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees of Georgia – 194, Ministry of Finance of Georgia – 143, Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia- 110, Office of the State Minister of Georgia for Reconciliation and Civic Equality – 4. The organization notes that the information provided from these ministries cannot be considered as complete information, however, creates certain trend towards the relevance of ministries.
The organization states that 18 Ministry of the Government provided administrative complaints statistics. The total number of applications filed as an administrative complaint, by the example of 18 ministries, amounted to 236. Monitoring paid attention to the circumstances under which, responses towards citizens for receiving information, basically, were as prescribed by the Administrative Code, which points out that the public agencies are working properly. In addition, it is worth noting that all ministries provide the process to publish the information proactively.
The “Young Barristers” interested in the condition of citizens’ applications towards the President and Parliament of Georgia. Also, the information was requested from the Office of the Main Prosecutor of Georgia. According to the information submitted, by the condition of 2014 to December 10, 76971 citizens appealed to the main prosecutor's office.
The Parliament has also presented statistics on the information requested on the basis of Articles 37 and 40 of the General Administrative Code, which in total are 299. As for the President’s Administration, response on the information requested by the organization has not been prepared up by the condition of 12 January 2015.
According to evaluation of the “Young Barristers” citizens applications towards the Ministries of the Government, is reduced. If there were 71082 appeals in 2011-2012 years, 2012-2013 - 197800, in 2014 more than 74.793 thousand citizens have applied to the Ministries of the Government. Citizens’ administrative complaints statistics has reduced also. There were 402 in 2011-2012 years, 2012-2013 - 894, and 236 in 2014.
Presented document in the second monitoring of the “Young Barristers”, which has revealed the communication quality of public institutions with citizens. The first monitoring published in November 2013 and covered the activities of the former and still existing government ministries comparison.
