AIS vs. SP, SMI, and DP over Electoral Spending Transparency. AIS request the Administrative Court of Appeal to accelerate the court proceedings

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In the context of the court proceedings and our efforts to force the political parties to provide the public with real time (during the election) data about the Financing of their Electoral Campaign, we are sharing with you some information about the latest developments.

Thus, AIS has filed a request with the Administrative Court of Appeal, asking it to: Abrogate of Decision no. 44, dated 22.07.2015 of the Commissioner for the Right to Information and Protection of Personal Data.  Force the political parties to give the complainant (AIS) the information about the financing of their electoral campaign requested on 09.06.2015.

The complainant in this process is: AIS, a non-profitable organization.

Defendants include: the Commissioner for the Right to Information, DP, SP, and SMI.

The case is registered with the court on 18.01.2016. The announcement of the Decision of the Court of First Instance, and the Transfer of the Case File to the Administrative Court of Appeal were delayed by two months. The court has drawn a lot, as a result of which the case is assigned to Judge Artur Malaj. Pending the court decision, AIS is afraid of potential prolongation and delays as a result of the technical workload of the administrative court.

In this context, AIS notes that the purpose of this court case, and the importance it has for the public interest requires the case to be adjudicated in due time, and without years-long prolongation. If the adjudication is prolonged and not finalized before the start of the next electoral campaign (2017), the purpose of the case and its adjudication are no longer important or relevant. In addition, a final interpretation and court decision would contribute to the process of debate and work for potential legal amendments in the framework of the Electoral Reform scheduled to be made and finalized within 2016.

Therefore, AIS in its capacity as the complainant in this court case, addressed the Administrative Court of Appeal, its Chief Judge Kastriot Selita, the case rapporteur, Judge Artur Malaj, and asked them to accelerate the court trial to as a short timeframe as possible.

 

Let me also remind you that our claim to real-time information about the financing of the electoral parties is based on Article 9 of the Constitution, point 3 “The financial resources of the political parties and their spending shall always be made public”.

 

Please find below a copy of the request made to the Administrative Court of Appeal for an Acceleration of Trial

Request for acceleration of adjudication

Copy of the second  request made to the Administrative Court of Appeal for an Acceleration of Trial

Second request for acceleration of adjudication

DiploHack Tirana 29 – 30th January

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The Embassy of the Netherlands in Albania and the Albanian Institute of Science will host DiploHack Tirana, “A Voice for Civil Society: Using Open Data to Strengthen Civil Society Advocacy” on January 29 and 30. This Hackathon event will bring together civil society representatives, diplomats, and programmers in a day-long session to work together towards creative ways for using open data to give civil society a stronger voice.

As the current holder of the Presidency of the European Union, the Netherlands has as one of its principles to promote dialogue between citizens and governments. Transparency plays a crucial role in a meaningful public debate, and using technology and open data can contribute significantly to empowering civil society, journalists and academia.

Mixed networks and collaborations are becoming increasingly important; the world is changing, and so is diplomacy. The rapid evolution of new technology offers both challenges and great opportunities. To meet these challenges, diplomats regularly collaborate with other actors to set up co-creative events that can approach issues of global relevance through ideation and design processes.

A #DiploHack combines the specific know-how and skill sets of NGO’s, social entrepreneurs, tech developers and designers, and those of diplomats, journalists, and academics to ‘hack’ problems and come up with out-of-the-box solutions. Small teams comprised of a civil society representative, a diplomat, and a programmer will work together for 24 hours. The team with the best idea wins the DiploHack Tirana Award.

Date: 29 afternoon and 30 January all the day.

Location: The Public Award Ceremony from 19:00 till 22:00 at 30 January 2016 at Destil

Hashtag: #DiploHack

  • Schedule – link
  • Results

Diplohack Albania 2016 Award

#Love in Action

Access hack in Tirana: an interactive map of accessibility statuis of public spaces for people with disabilities.

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  • DiploHack Data Sets

#4Techno

Information on time for public procurement to be improved

Email 1Print Screen Ap 2Print Screen App

Swords

Fund your idea:technical assistance, accessibility to data sources capacity building

FYI-Presentation

HopEU

Helping domestic violence victims

hopeu

Slockomats

Education and labor market

PPTX – DOCX

The Pink Team

Common Places, on open digital platform as space of discussion about the creation of common places

DiploHack_PinkTeam

Albanian Tulip

Civil Society Platform:Making Albanian NGO’s more effective by improving their visibility

printsc1printsc2printsc3printsc4

#Love in Action

Universal access in Tirana:an interactive map of accessibility statuis of public spaces for people with disabilities

PPTX – PDF

The Pioneers

Balkan Bike, digital platform for cycling mobility

The Pioneers Slide1The Pioneers Slide2

Click

Neighbour tap

PPTX

DEC16

Giving a voice to citizens through technology:website and app that allow citizens to contact directly their political representatives

PPTX – PDF

Dothack

See and Act, responsibilities of local governments

PPTX

Sunshine Pirates

WANA app(We Are Not Alone): helping people who live alone for medical emergency purposes

PPTX

The Fifth Power

Be My Guest: Digital tourism ma of Albania with info on region/attraction and populations

PPTX – PDF

 

  • Mentors

Nori Spauwen

noriNori Spauwen is a junior diplomat who works for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She specializes in Human Rights and Strenghtening Civil Society and is in Albania for a month to help set up a DiploHack. Nori has a background as an advocate for LGBT rights at the UN and holds a Master degree in Political Philosophy. She lives in Amsterdam and works in The Hague.

Rron Nushi

11880358_955168171207866_3259066890582449266_nRron is currently doing a master in International Relations at Leiden University and is writing his thesis on Albania’s potential as a regional peace builder in the Balkans.

Besjana Hysa

besjanaBesjana Hysa has been working for almost 4 years on promoting Transparency through Data by monitoring and analyzing the information on everything related to public expenditures in Albania and implementing digital platforms that provide information to citizens. She is currently involved in the following project: “Money, Government and Politics” project for publishing data about assets, incomes and expenditures declared by high level officials in politics and judiciary system, Electoral Spending project that contains data and analyses on electoral campaign expenditures.

Shefiko Hajna

shefikoShefiko Hajna is a Software Developer for several projects such as: Open Spending, Open Data and Za’Lart. She holds a Master Degree in System of Information in Economy, Faculty of Economics at the University of Tirana.

Erald Hoxha

eraldiErald Hoxhabis an Open Data Journalist working in Albanian Institute of Science projects that have generated substantial results in terms of transparency, information, accountability and good governance. His work consist in providing the public with Transparency and civic participation through the open source platform Raised Voices Albania (Za’Lart), where citizens had the opportunity to denounce cases of vote manipulation, misuse of public administration or children, and other electoral distortions.

Ergest Nako

eergestCo-founder of Garazh, a newly organization, with the object to help, and acceleration innovation in Albania and in the region. Ergest has an experience of more than 10 years in the technology sector with strong expertise in Project Management, Information security, Business Process Management and IT management. He hold a MSc in software engineer. During the last two year, he is deeply involved in the innovation sector in Tirana, organizing Startup Weekend Tirana for three times in raw and the first HackDay Albania, mentoring different startup and also giving presentation, motivation speech and moderating different events in the innovation sector. He also was recognized for the startup weekend Tirana as Best Innovative Program for 2014 by Infocom Albania.

 

  • Participants list
  • Organizers: The Embassy of the Netherlands in Albania and the Albanian Institute of Science
  • Inspiration

okfnlogo

youlogo

pdf-icon

datalookSS_Logo_White_Large

http://dynamic.hs.fi/2012/hsopen6-1/index.html

  •  Resource Open Data

pdf-icon

  • Instruments

Google Charts tools

https://developers.google.com/chart/?hl=en

https://cartodb.com/

http://www.highcharts.com/

https://support.google.com/fusiontables/answer/2571232

  • Video Presentations (after the event)
  • Photo Gallery

hackathon-diplohack

 

 

 

Finalists of Open Data Hackathon Albania 2015

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Date: 19.12.2015

Organizer: AIS in the framework of MG&P

Place: My Office, Tirana

Topic of this year: Life in a Different City

Hackathon (Hacker + Marathon) is an open marathon, where various individuals may participate, work, and finalize an application or map. This year, Hackathon was held on 19 December, and the suggested topic was: Life in a Different City. An open invitation was addressed to ordinary citizens, analysts, storytellers, scout programmers, and designers.

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The event was organized as a contest among groups and individuals. Six groups managed to get to the finals, presenting the following topics:

Topic: Health Care in My City. How is money spent in the hospitals for citizens’ health? Where is budgeting done best: Gjirokastra, Fieri, Korça, Dibra, or Kukësi? Students of Economics monitored budget-related facts for regional hospitals. Money means first health services, and then health. Some of the Hackers’ findings include: more money is paid for salaries than medications, equipment, and hospital treatment. .

http://ais.al/Hackathon/Shendetesia/girokaster.html

http://ais.al/Hackathon/Shendetesia/korce.html

http://ais.al/Hackathon/Shendetesia/kukes.html

http://ais.al/Hackathon/Shendetesia/list.html

http://ais.al/Hackathon/Shendetesia/Totali.html

shendetimg

Topic: Albanian Facing European Tourism. What should know a tourist visiting Tirana, and what those managing tourism should know about other European countries and about countries neighboring Albania? This was the theme of an application presented at Hackathon 2015.

Topic: Infrastructure Expenses. Two municipalities with the biggest budget for Infrastructure: Gjirokastra and Tirana. Public Works and Infrastructure that each citizen would like to have in his/her municipality. One of the Hackathon contestants identified the two municipalities with the biggest budgets and expenses for infrastructure. Gjirokastra and Tirana are on the top of the list, and Hackathon presentation identified the private companies contracted for public works in these two municipalities.

http://ais.al/Hackathon/transporti/Gjirokaster.html

http://ais.al/Hackathon/transporti/Tirana.html

gjiroimg

Topic: Improve My City#‎Saranda. APP or web page? Do you have problems with infrastructure or urban planning? Do you live in Saranda? Report your problems to ‘Improve My City’!! Afterwards, your report shall be posted on the website of the Mayor or City Council. An APP for e-Participation.

http://ais.al/Hackathon/saranda/test.html

sarandaimg

Topic: Employment vs. University in My City. The number of those pursuing their University studies is much higher than the number of new jobs requiring a University degree. An analysis of these figures presented at this Hackthon brings a comparison showing how disintegrated these two trends are. Finding: 6% of the country population is University students. However, the number of jobs that require a University degree is far from that. Study fees are the highest at the University of Medicine, but the highest salaries are paid in the Hydrocarbure Industry. The number of IT students is the lowest, but the highest number of new jobs is found precisely in this sector. There is a need for more research in the labor market and its relation with the University – that is the conclusion of the first presentation at Hackathon Albania.

http://ais.al/Hackathon/Ne qytetin tim cdokush shkon ne Univ. A ja vlen/list.html

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Topic: Taxes in a Different City. How do I pay for my Municipality?!! A student of the Faculty of Economics, another one from the Faculty of Medicine, and one from IT joined their efforts in finding out the city, where people pay the highest and the lowest taxes.

http://ais.al/Hackathon/taksat/list.html

http://ais.al/Hackathon/taksat/list2.html

http://ais.al/Hackathon/taksat/list3.html

http://ais.al/Hackathon/taksat/list4.html

taksaimg

The six final ideas were presented to a jury composed of the following:

  • Anisa RULA, Scientific Researcher, University of Milan, Bicocca, Italy
  • Elga MITRE,Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Tirana
  • Julia HOXHA, Scientific Researcher, Albanian Institute of Science (AIS), University of Columbia, USA
  • Leonid BLLOSHMI, Open Society Foundation Albania
  • Rron NUSHI, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Tirana

 

Hackathon took place in the premises of My Office. This is the fourth year that AIS organizes a Hackathon for Albania. The next event to be organized by AIS is Open Data Day 2016 Albania.

Phases of the Court process of AIS vs Political Parties for transparency on electoral financies

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In the framework of its efforts to promote electoral transparency, AIS has appealed at the Administrative Court of Appeal against the decision of the Court of Tirana to dismiss the organization’s request towards the main political parties PD, PS and LSI (two of them in power) to make available their information on campaign spending and donations. Considering this issue the first court case where an entity / organization submitted a claim against the three main political parties

The Constitution of Albania, which brings one of the best models of access to information on election finances with no restriction, discrimination, bureaucratic procedures and institutional intermediaries.

AIS will continue to advocate the judicial position that political parties are subjects to the Public Law, and obliged, based on the Constitution to provide information to the citizens, media and other civil actors. Also, transparency over campaign spending and donations is an essential aspect of free and fair election.

Chronological steps of the process

  1. Official request sent to the three main parties on 09.06.2015
  2. Request based on the Law on right of information and the Constitution
  3. The three parties didn’t replied to the official request of AIS
  4. AIS addressed the issue to the Commissioner for the Right of Information (Mr. Besnik Dervishi), but the claim was dismissed
  5. AIS sued the three political parties in the Administrative Court
  6. The court held three sessions, in which were present only the representatives of the Socialist Party and the Commissioner for the right of Information
  7. The last session held on November 10th the court decided to dismiss the AIS claim
  8. AIS appealed the decision in the Administrative Court of Appeal,
  9. In this process AIS is represented by the Law firm Gumi & Associates
  10. Appeal to the Administrative Court of Appeal
  11. Request for acceleration of adjudication
  12. AIS addresses the Strasbourg Court. Albania does not guarantee trial within a reasonable time (Article 6 of the ECHR)
  13. Administrative Court of Appeal Decision dated 22.11. 2017 with no. 4916 (5236)
  14. AIS addresses the Court of Strasbourg in the absence of both a High Court and a Constitutional Court in the country, asking this court to review the merits of a case, which is now in a process of recourse.

Important Documents of the Court Process:

Request for Information PS                  

Request for Information PD

Request for Information LSI

Complaint for the Commissioner of the right to information

Law suit act                       

Court Call document

Decision of the Administrative Court

Appeal to the Administrative Court of Appeal

Request for acceleration of adjudication

AIS Request to Strasbourg Court (PDF)

Decision Administrative Court of Appeal

Request: AIS addresses the Court of Strasbourg in the absence of both a High Court and a Constitutional Court in the country, asking this court to review the merits of a case, which is now in a process of recourse.

 

 

Invitation for participation: Hackathon Albania 2015 “Life in another city”

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Hackathon Albania is a yearly event organized to celebrate Open Data and promote their use, adoption, and development of new exciting apps. This year, the event takes place on December 19th 2015 with the topic “Life in another city”.

The event is open to individuals, analysts; engineers; (storytellers); scout programmers, designers or students able to develop an application based on Open Data.

How to prepare for the Hackathon (Hacker+Marathon) ?

Everyone can collect data about its city or town (not just digital) and create a map or an application. This edition triggers data analyses and applications of various themes affecting different aspects of life in Albanian cities regarding

  • Economy, employment, enterprises
  • Infrastructure including urban distances, buildings, forests ect.
  • Technological development and Internet access in various cities
  • Demography

All those who would like to participate in this event, may be registered for free in the following link : Hackathon Albania 2015  or join the event on the facebook page of the Albanian Institute of Science

Thank you in advance!

The impact of Open Data in the democratization of fiscal policy

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Within the framework of OpenBudgets.eu project, AIS participated at the workshop “Democratization of Fiscal Policy” organized by the Open Knowledge Foundation International and OKF Germany, on 30th November and 1st December, 2015. The workshop aimed at creating an open-source model that would integrate all Budget data and transactions expenditures for various public sectors to foster better understand what role open data plays.

AIS promoter of open budgeting through the implementation of Open Data Albania and Open Spending platforms, presented different models that made transparency over state budget expenditures and treasury transactions. Also, the use of linked data helped in the identification of conflict of interest, cases of corruption and nepotism in Albania.

Different civil society organizations such as: Fair-Play, Hasdana, k-monitor, UNDP, journalists and policymakers, worked together on the processes of partnership-building, the acquisition of the best open budget practices, as well as shaping concrete actions in the Democratization of fiscal policy.12309084_10153157338517051_1514968783_n12325358_10153157338577051_101162729_nUntitled

Declaration of assets of elected Mayors on 21st of June 2015

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In the framework of Money, Government and Politics program, updated data are released in Spending Data Albania portal, “Money and Power” column, about declared assets of newly elected Mayors of June 21st, 2015, as well as their relatives’ assets. The data are published in compliance with access to information, transparency and accountability principles. Through these publications every journalist or citizen can be informed of the annual income of each mayor such us income from rents, bargains, intellectual property, gifts, opening of inheritance acts etc.

  • In case of employment of the family members through declarations, we can provide information on labor relations in the public or private sector and in some cases investigative journalists can assess whether it is necessary to undertake an investigation on possible conflict of interest.
  • Statements also contain information on their income abroad such as credits in foreign banks and real estate outside the country.
  • The release of these data creates the possibility for citizens to monitor, if the Mayors will favor the development of specific properties and businesses.

As we would like to thank you for your attention, we want to remind you on the eventual use of the data contained in our publications without any restriction. But on the other hand we would like that you always cite Spending Data Albania portal, Money and Power column, developed in the framework of our organization program AIS titled  Money, Government and Politics.

Spending Transparency for Municipalities

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Open Governance – Good Governance

USAID/Albania and PLGP, in collaboration with the Albanian Institute of Science (AIS), has launched an “Open Governance as Good Governance” initiative. This initiative will draw upon the AIS project experience to make model municipalities’ budgets more transparent by publishing municipal finance information using an Open Data format.

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