Citizens are entitled to public information about their direct surroundings
image: Giulia May via Unsplash
Dutch agriculture minister Wiersma has halted around 15 information requests about livestock levels and locations. Annemarie Drahmann, Associate Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, argues in Dutch newspaper NRC that such environmental data must be accessible.
The information requests are from environmental movement MOB, the Wakker Dier organisation and NRC. The requested data is important for calculating the effectiveness of nitrogen policy. Drahmann says that ‘it has been agreed in an international treaty that environmental data is of great social importance.’ But farmers are worried about problems from animal rights activists if their personal and company-sensitive data is public knowledge. The minister also shares these concerns and wants to set up a zienswijzeprocedure, a procedure under the General Administrative Law Act for expressing views. But citizens are entitled to this information under the Open Government Act.
In Drahmann's opinion, setting up a zienswijzeprocedure is unnecessary, as there are hardly any grounds for not disclosing the data and the procedure will not provide any relevant new information. ‘Farmers do need to be notified before their data is made public so that they have the possibility to go to court,’ Drahmann added.
More information?
Read the full article in NRC (in Dutch, €)