Albania

Name of law: Law No. 119/2014 on the Right to Information
First adopted: 1999
Last modified: 2014-09
RTI Rating last updated: 2016-11

Introduction

Albania has strong constitutional and legal guarantees for the right to information, which result in its relatively high RTI Rating. The Albanian Constitution provides in Article 23 the right of every person to obtain information about the activity of State organs and persons who exercise State functions. The latest amendment in 2014 represented a substantial improvement of its previous law, as the new framework enumerates an expansive definition of the term “public information” and “public authority”. This is supplemented by a robust statutory procedure for making requests and a system of penalties for public officials who arbitrarily refuse to disclose information. Possible areas for further improvement would be to require public authorities to report annually on the actions they have taken to implement their disclosure obligations. Training should be required to be provided to officials by law, although an RTI course has been added to the mandatory civil servant curriculum of the Albanian School for Public Administration. The law is also available in its Albanian original at https://qbz.gov.al/eli/ligj/2014/09/17/119/994d10a1-a94c-47d6-afe3-736da383a167"

Local Expert: Ilir Aliaj