September 28 is International Day for Universal Access to Information.
In Türkiye, the right to information has been legally guaranteed since 2003 with Law No. 4982. While the law grants citizens the right to request information from public institutions, and obliges institutions to respond, many challenges remain in practice.
Since January 2015, the IPI Freedom of Information (FoI) Platform has recorded 248 FoI requests filed by journalists and civil society representatives. Of these requests, 79% came from journalists, 20% from CSOs, and 1% from lawyers, activists, and academics.
Out of all requests, 105 received positive responses, 69 were rejected, and 41 are still pending. The remaining were only partially answered. The longest wait for a response was 493 days.
The most common reasons for rejection were that the requested information was already publicly available, required separate and special work, or was deemed not of public interest.
Even among requests not formally rejected but technically “answered”:
54% provided no information at all,
15% provided only half of the requested information,
And just 12% provided comprehensive information.
