Gubad Ibadoglu participated at Black Sea NGO Forum held in Bucharest

Gubad Ibadoglu talked about Azerbaijan’s access to information and open government in Bucharest The chairman of Public Initiative Center Gubad Ibadoglu participated at Black Sea NGO Forum held in Bucharest on October 24-25, 2012. He talked about current issues related to access to information and open government. During research the chairman outlined the obstacles acquiring information in Azerbaijan and drew the attention of audience to latest changes made over “ Law on Trade Secrets”. He noted that according to addendums made to fourth article on “ Information considered as trade secrets” the shares of founders ( participants) of commercial entitis is considered trade secrets. As a result of this changes Gubad Ibadoglu mentioned that the micorlevel data will be more restricted compared to previous law. During conference he also talked about the addendums made onto “ Law on access to information” and mentioned that due to latest changes the information access can be granted only when there are no any contradictions against protection of interests in the field of political, economic and military, financial-credit and monetary, security of health and dignity, protection of the rights and freedom of other persons, commercial and other economic interests, including ensure protection the authority and impartiality of the court. G.Ibadoglu underlined that that these changes jeopardize the requirements set by Open Government Partnership Initiative where Azerbaijan is member and therefore, he called the representatives of Black Sea countries’ civil society to build multilateral cooperation in this direction. He also emphasized that all Black Sea countries are members of this Initiative except Russia and in a consequence this creates cooperation platform for Civil ocieties of those countries.