Views  Happy holiday Yes, that’s right. 28th September is International Information Access Day, known by the slogan: “I HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW!” This year it has been celebrated for the fourth time and it has been our first real celebration: the Republic of Macedonia has had a Law on Free Access to Information of Public Character (LFAIPC) since this year. In spite of the fact that in Macedonia the right to free access to information is guaranteed by the Constitution (article 16), LFAIPC was a necessary key to opening democratic perspective for Macedonia.  The story started in 2001 in a completely wrong direction. The then government suggested to the Parliament a law on public informing, which was everything but a law that would advance freedom of informing. The PRO MEDIA reaction, in cooperation with a number of domestic non-governmental organizations and supported by international non-governmental and governmental organizations, was crowned with success: the government withdrew the law from a parliament procedure. Two months later, PRO MEDIA held the first workshop on: “Free access to information”. Since then it has been shown that our political scene is relatively “unfruitful soil” for such ideas and legal projects. The first draft version of the law was prepared in 2003 and the then government constantly played “hot-cold” or “one step forward – two steps backward”, diluting the capacity of the legal text and prolonging its adoption. Eventually, the Republic of Macedonia, as the last country in the region, received a decent LFAIPC in February, and its application started on 1st September. And once again, thank to the public mutual pressure by domestic and foreign NGOs, as well as the public support by international organizations, “decency” or valence of the Law with internationally accepted standards was provided with pressure on the government, which at “five to 12” submitted amendments of its own legal text, which had already been in a parliament procedure. That’s it as far as the pre(history) of the Law is concerned! What further? Such pre-history certainly does not infuse optimism; even less leaves a place for self-satisfaction in congratulations. On the contrary. The moral is unambiguously clear: the government opens slowly and hard. But now when we have the key, which is constitutionally and legally coded, the creation of open power will depend on us to a great extent! In order to open the closed doors of the power, we will need knowledge, good organization and, certainly, long-lasting and committed work. That’s why understand the congratulations from the title as a possibility to examine what we are missing. Next year on 28th September, when we will have to evaluate and show how much we moved away from the start line, we will not be able to say that “they” have not let us do it.   (the author of the text is the president of citizens’ association PRO MEDIA)