Successful access to information claim in Bulgaria

By EDRi · December 15, 2004

In Bulgaria, proponents of open source and open standards have booked a remarkable legal victory. On 7 December 2004 the Supreme Administrative Court ruled against the minister of state administration, Dimitar Kalchev. Two members of parliament and the foundation ‘Access to Information Program’ had demanded access to the 2002 agreement between Microsoft and the Bulgarian government on renting 30.000 copies of MS Windows XP and MS Office XP.

A jury of 3 decided to grant access to the document. Government has announced they will appeal the decision, and take it to a 5-member jury. Until then, the document will not be made available.

News item about the verdict (in Bulgarian, 09.12.2004)
http://portal.bg/news.php?cat=main&read=20040912002

(Contribution by Veni Markovski, EDRI-member ISOC Bulgaria)