Audiences at Parliament, while designed to create direct interactions between lawmakers and members of the public, continue to be an instrument lacking in transparency. Information about scheduling appointments with a lawmaker at the Parliament building or in the districts is missing both on the institution’s website and on its official Facebook account. Instead, some lawmakers use their own accounts to inform the public about the possibility of making appointments or trips to the districts. This was found by Promo-LEX in preparing the second annual Parliament monitoring report.
Promo-LEX has found that from August 2022 to July 2023, only 33 of 89 lawmakers with an official Facebook account informed citizens about their appointments schedule.
While the agenda of audiences, including trips to the territory, was reflected in 190 posts, other interactions and discussions with citizens, including those along party lines, were reflected in almost double the number of posts – 345. Promo- LEX believes that all the activities carried out by the people’s elected officials had to be reflected in a transparent manner. “In exercising their mandate, MPs are at the service of the people, therefore informing citizens is an essential condition for the transparent discharge of their basic duties. And the hearings, as a mechanism for communication between the deputy and the citizen, should be delimited from other discussions and interactions, since the purpose of an audience is to solve the citizen’s problem”, said Promo-LEX.
In order to ensure the transparency of the audiences and increase their accessibility, Promo-LEX recommends the Parliament’s leadership to consider the possibility of informing the citizens in advance about the planned audiences both at the legislative headquarters and in the districts. It is advised to ensure records of audiences, as well as active information about the audiences held by all the people’s elected representatives.
