[6] The Steering Committee found that the Turkish government acted contrary to OGP process for two consecutive action plan cycles.
Foreign residents can exercise the right “on the condition that the information that they require is related to them or the field of their activities and on the basis of the principle of reciprocity”.
[9] The law applies to “any written, printed or copied file, document, book, journal, brochure, etude, letter, software, instruction, sketch, plan, film, photograph, tape and video cassette, map of the institutions and the information, news and other data that are recorded and saved in electronic format that are within the scope of (the) law”.
[3][10] The BEDK jurisdiction on appeals for denials to requests of information was originally limited to cases relating to national security and state economic interests.
[13] According to the 2016 European Commission (EC) Progress Report on Turkey, the Law on access to public information is not fully aligned with international standards.
Another problem highlighted by the EC is the failure to adopt pending legislation on state and trade secrets, which prevents to balance between confidentiality and transparency when assessing freedom of information requests.
The OGP action plan included, among other objectives, an improvement of the possibility to access public information for Turkish citizens.
[6] The decision follows a resolution approved unanimously by the OGP Steering Committee during their May 4, 2016 ministerial level meeting in Cape Town, South Africa.
That resolution called for the government of Turkey to take steps to re-engage in OGP, including the development of a National Action with broad civil society participation by September 1, 2016.