The Law requires regular data about its own operation to be produced. That data is a ready-made source for a journalist.
The Text
Art. 30 of Law No. 4982: institutions and organisations prepare a report containing, for the preceding year, the number of applications and the statistics of requests granted and refused.
| Stage | Who | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Preparing the body's report and sending it to the Board | Institutions and organisations | By the end of February |
| Submitting the general report to the Grand National Assembly | The Board for the Review of Access to Information | By the end of April |
What Is in the Reports?
The items the Law lists lend themselves directly to producing stories:
- The number of applications - the volume of demand
- The number of requests granted - the access rate
- The number of requests refused - the refusal rate
What Comes Out of the Data?
| Question | How it is calculated |
|---|---|
| Which body refuses most? | Refusals / total applications |
| How has the refusal rate changed over the years? | A comparison by year |
| Where is application volume concentrated? | A ranking across bodies |
| What is the trend in the Board's objection decisions? | The general report + Board decisions |
How Do You Obtain the Report?
There are two routes:
- The body's own publication - bodies may publish their reports.
- A freedom of information request - you can request the report directly. It is a statistical document about the body's own activity and hard to bring within the exceptions.
We cover the application procedure in the application guide.
The Board for the Review of Access to Information
Under Art. 14 the Board consists of nine members and the term of office is four years. Among the members:
- One member each from the Court of Cassation and the Council of State
- Professors of law
- A representative of the Union of Turkish Bar Associations
- Managers at director general level
- A representative of the Ministry of Justice
The Board decides objections within thirty working days (Art. 13).
The Legal Limit in Data Journalism
Cite the Source
Citing the source in a story produced from official data is both a journalistic principle and a requirement of verifiability. We cover the rules of source attribution in the source attribution guide.
Summary
- Institutions send their annual reports of application numbers and of granted and refused request statistics to the Board by the end of February.
- The Board submits its general report to Parliament by the end of April.
- That regular, comparable data is a ready-made source for data journalism.