Open Education, Open Justice and eParticipation are at the centre of Slovakia’s commitments in its second Open Government Partnership Action plan for 2015.
Slovakia joined the OGP project in 2011 and then published its first Action Plan for 2012-2013. Since then, the Slovakian government has implemented several measures to fight against corruption and promote transparency and eParticipation in political life: a national Open Data portal (data.gov.sk) and its “Guidelines for the involvement of the public in the creation of public policies” - to promote a participatory approach in ministries. A participatory budget has also been implemented in Bratislava, the Slovakian government said in a statement.
Open licencing for scientific and educational materials
However, “the issue of Open Data is also related to the issue of Open Education”, the Slovakian government said. Slovakia wants to open access to publicly-funded educational and scientific materials and make them available through an open license. “These are often published in such a manner that access to them is complicated even for experts within academia, not to mention the wider public”, the statement said. The statement also noted that “proprietary licenses, as well as technological issues related to publishing create barriers which need to be eliminated”. Seven new commitments, among the 32 listed in the second Action Plan, will address this issue.
Promote public participation
Other updates in the Action Plan deal with increasing citizen participation in policy-making. For example, the Slovakian government is committed to identifying “at least one public policy at each government department that will be created in a participatory manner” (commitment 21) and conducting “workshops focused on public involvement in the development of public policies for government employees” (Commitment 22).
Assessing judges
Finally, Slovakia is seeking to adapt a policy to ensure that assessments of judges are published. “There is no obligation in the law, however, to publish the report results. For these reasons, it seems appropriate to adopt changes to the current wording of the legislation, which would define the obligation to regularly inform the public about the results of the evaluations of judges”, the Action Plan states.