by Jeremy Druker
Druker is associate editor of the English-language Transitions magazine based in Prague.

Nearly ten years after the fall of the Wall, officialdom across Central and Eastern Europe retains one of its communist-era trademarks: the unhelpful bureaucrat who refuses to hand over even the most innocuous bits to journalists.

But a new wave of freedom-of-information converts is fighting back, arguing that greater openness is one of the few ways to weed out conflicts of interest and corruption -- especially in countries riddled with shady deals between public officials and private interests. Groups in places as disparate as Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria are drafting legislation, holding freedom-of-access seminars, and lining up supporters in the media and government. In Sofia, for example, the nonprofit Access to Information Program -- staffed by journalists and lawyers -- has compiled files of more than 200 cases in which officials have denied access to information. The group has launched a "right to know" campaign, complete with a how-to brochure.

Still, few countries in the former Soviet bloc have taken the freedom-of-information leap, and only Hungary has put any meat into its access legislation. But Hungarians had a head start. A group of lawyers began researching freedom-of-information issues in the 1980s as their country was re-opening to the West. In 1992, parliament passed the Data Protection and Freedom of Information Law, then elected a parliamentary commissioner to oversee it.

In 1996 the Ministry of Trade and Commerce handed out valuable contracts to private companies involved in planning events for the 1,000-year anniversary of the Magyars' arrival in Hungary. When journalists requested a list of the firms and payments, the ministry refused, calling the information a "business secret." After the commissioner ruled that information about services bought with state money should be open to the public, the ministry relented. Publication of the list exposed a series of dubious expenditures.

In the Czech Republic last summer, the Senate debated a revolutionary bill introduced to anchor Czechs' constitutional right to information in a concrete law.

The Czech Senate sent the bill back to the House with amendments. Some senators claimed that barriers to information do not exist. Others declared that if the law were passed, bureaucrats would be so overwhelmed with requests that they'd have no time for normal work.

The press responded to the bill's defeat with outrage. Tomas Brzobohaty, a columnist for Mlada fronta Dnes, the country's most popular newspaper, suggested that some politicians opposed the law because they feared that incriminating information about themselves would come to light. A revamped bill is making its way through the legislature.

One of those unwilling to let politicians off the hook is Irena Valova, chairwoman of the Czech Syndicate of Journalists.

"There's still great ignorance," she says "about these foreign models for freedom of information laws. Many journalists don't even know that such laws exist."

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