TOWARD PROVISION OF FREE ONLINE ACCESS TO CONSOLIDATED TEXTS OF NORTH MACEDONIA’S LEGISLATION

Abstract

Access to public information has been promoted throughout a myriad of international and national
documents of high significance, such as: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European
Convention on Human Rights, the Constitution of the Republic of North Macedonia, and the Law
on Free Access to Public Information. The citizens of North Macedonia are obliged to respect the
Constitution and the laws, but the latter are subjected to frequent changes, making it very difficult
for the citizens to get hold of the version in use. While the European Union and most of its member
states provide free of charge online access to consolidated versions of laws and other relevant
legislative texts, in North Macedonia this service is available only upon payment. The Covid-19
crisis has merely intensified the ongoing trends of computer and internet-based business doing,
and the dynamic digital environment should nonetheless be followed up by a convenient and easily
accessible legislation repositories. Adhering to the Free Access to Law Movement and taking into
consideration the variety of approaches deployed by various European countries, we are talking to
legal practitioners and relevant stakeholders in North Macedonia, revealing their viewpoints on
the topic. At the end we are laying out recommendations on the steps that need to be taken and the
model that needs to be implemented toward the provision of free online access to consolidated
texts of North Macedonia’s legislation.