The issue is a law which is supposed to make it easier for citizens to access administrative documents and a revision should give greater transparency.
At a general meeting of the Association of Luxembourgish Journalists, RTL's Tim Morizet asked the President of the Press Council, Ines Kurschat, about what the law on information access means for journalists.
The transparency law applies to journalists in the same way as it does to other citizens. This means that a journalist who is missing crucial information for their research needs to wait for up to four weeks to receive this information.
Given that there are currently no regulations in place that stipulate that a reason for denying an information request needs to be given, there is the risk that people are left in the dark.
Furthermore, according to the press council, there are no statistics on how many of these requests, by the public or the press, have been granted or denied.
The press council has sent a proposal to the Minister for Communications and Media to ask for an addition to the press legislation. Concrete information should be provided more quickly, just like it is the case in our neighbouring countries.
The file on information access has been subject to debate since early 2000. The press council says it is disappointing that more progress hasn't been made.
