[2][3] Due to the specific circumstances and the way in which it was created, the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, annex IV of Dayton Peace Agreement did not pay much attention to the right to information.
The consultation process for drafting the law involved the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)’s legal experts and extensive public discussions with citizens and civil society groups.
Specifically, three cases of exceptions are foreseen: first, when there is the possibility that disclosing information can cause a significant damage to legitimate functions of the government (national security, defence, monetary policy issues, prevention of crime, etc.
[4] In Bosnia and Herzegovina some NGOs contribute to enforce the law on access to public information as well as to monitor its application and collect relevant data through the submission of FOI requests and the start of appeal procedures.
[6] According to a report prepared by the Association of journalists of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the country's Press Council, the vast majority of Bosnians (around 93%) believe that there are several limitations to the right of access to public information in practice.
[7] Specifically, one of the major deficiency of freedom of information laws in Bosnia and Herzegovina is the weakness of the provisions concerning the appeal procedures in case the request is rejected.
[4] Another problem concerns the lack of compliance with other existing laws that exclude or significantly reduce the right to free access to information in practice both in the Federation and in the Republika Srpska.
[4] In 2013-16 in order to test the implementation of FOI laws, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) submitted a series of requests for accessing documents to different public bodies in the country at all level.