Michał Zemełka, member of the Citizens’ Network Watchdog Poland, interviewed by Roksana Maślankiewicz.
Tell us about your activity, how did you get interested in the issues of citizen control and the right to information? When did it start? What pushed you to become a watchdog?
For as long as I can remember, human and civil rights and in particular the right to information have been very important to me. I see the source of this in a set of specific life experiences that caused the formation of such an attitude, let’s call it “caring” for others and the world. However, due to the need to put my private and professional life together first, the subject of the right to information was in the back of my mind for many years until I finally arranged things in such a way as to be able to get actively involved.
And what did you ask in your first public information application?
The first application for public information I sent concerned the so-called “boxes of life” purchased by the city of Białystok, which are red, easy-to-see containers in which important information concerning the owner’s health is placed. They are addressed especially to elderly or lonely people, placed in a visible place (e.g., on the fridge), and their purpose is to facilitate the possible intervention of medical services. The reason for sending the application was a discussion that arose between my friends from Białystok, concerning the rationality of this kind of expense and at the same time clearly lacking the data to conduct it.
Any luck finding anything out?
Yes, and not in a typical way. This experience turned out to be quite constructive, because taking advantage of the fact that the Act on Access to Public Information does not specify the form of the application and the fact that the Municipal Office in Białystok uses Facebook to communicate with the citizens, I decided to submit my application this way, more precisely through the messenger embedded in it. I asked about both the explanation for the idea of buying boxes and the documents involved in selecting a supplier.
I got both three days later, without any fuss, unnecessary paperwork, just a chat reply – just as I requested. Admittedly, the explanation was rather shallow, revealing a lack of deeper reflection on the subject and a tendency to follow the trend, but this was no longer my problem – I forwarded the answer to my friends in Białystok, so that they could continue with this, if, based on the data received, they still felt the need to do so.
And after those first challenges, what do you most often ask and who?
I don’t have one favourite topic, nor do I have a particular office or other institution in mind. I try to ask about socially relevant things, react to the situation, strike while the iron is still hot. Sometimes it’s about controversial decisions of the authorities and sometimes it’s more about the process of making them, without assessing whether they are right or wrong. It is also sometimes the purpose of the application to draw attention to things that need to be completed or improved, because the mere fact that someone is interested in a topic raises its importance.
In my not so long adventure with watchdogging, apart from asking typical authorities, I have sent applications to schools, police, the fire department, forest inspectorates, ministries, and institutions such as the Roads Authority (ZDM), the Polish Press Agency (PAP), and the Financial Supervision Authority (KNF).
And I asked about: decisions taken (e.g., regarding the handing over of the voter register to the Polish Post Office), decision-making processes (e.g., regarding the installation of second hand lights at traffic lights), contracts (e.g., related to the purchase or maintenance of “smog sensors”), documents related to the selection of an offer (e.g., for the supply of the previously mentioned “boxes of life”), the status/plan of work on mandatory legal acts (e.g., defining detailed rules for citizens’ initiatives), the status/plan of work to which the office has committed itself (e.g., preparation of openness guidelines for city companies), procedures applicable in the office (e.g., rules for the circulation of incoming documents), and I could probably find something else.
Wow, that’s a lot. And through obtaining the information by means of access to information, have you been able to make any change or alert the community to any disturbing changes?
First of all, I would like to stress that it is difficult to do something noticeable, perceptible, tangible without the help of others.
Yes, it’s true, it’s always a tough question. It’s also easier to see from the side. And trying to changing something alone is indeed a challenge.
While this is obviously not impossible and many members of the Citizens Network Watchdog Poland have had this type of success to their credit, I have not yet been able to make a significant change by myself.
Anyway, I have no such ambitions. I like to think that even the smallest action is a seed that can unexpectedly grow even after being dormant for a long time, or a brick that stays where it’s laid and if more bricks are added next to it over time, there will be a foundation and then a building. But I understand that’s not the point of the question, so let’s move on to some examples.
One of the ways in which offices limit openness is by creating discouraging application procedures and enacting price lists that include absurdly high fees for the preparation of response with public information. Such a situation occurred in the Krzywiń municipality, where such regulations were introduced by ordinance at least twice and each time they were overruled by the governor. There were at least two people taking action on this case besides me (that’s how many I know of), so it wasn’t an individual success. Well, it wasn’t really about the information acquired, it was about the process of acquiring it.
That is a very tangible success!
Another example, where a change has been achieved, this time thanks to the involvement of many people (here we are talking about dozens), is the issue of access to data on forest works by the State Forests. The action of asking questions to forest inspectorates initiated and led by the grassroots initiative Forests and Citizens, in which I eagerly joined, led to a change in the attitude of the State Forests. According to the information from one of the organizers, the data on clearcuts and thinning shared by the forest inspectorate have improved in quality and also the form of sharing them has been improved. I was just a tiny cog in the action, but still – every action counts.
This is also a very good example showing that together we can do more, which we could also observe recently with the Central Register of Contracts. But back to environmental issues – you mentioned that you used to be involved in the topic of smog detectors in Poland. Could you say something more about it?
Oh, yes, but it’s a big and complex topic. I felt that the air quality in my neighbourhood was getting increasingly worse. Searching for hard data, I was surprised to discover that although more and more smog sensors are appearing around the country and municipalities are participating in the costs, air quality data from all sensors, including those purchased or maintained using public funds, are not gathered in one place.
One of the effects of this is that, although we collect a lot of air quality data around the country, it’s “every man for himself” and sometimes in one and the same municipality there are air sensors from different sources. Therefore, to check the state of the air in such a municipality, you need to look in more than one place and then do some gymnastics with connecting these data.
I began to wonder about the scale of the phenomenon, its causes and possible actions that could be taken to organise and rationalise the spending of public funds in this area and, more specifically, to bring about the central collection of data from all sensors and make it available for reuse, including through a software interface.
This required sending out about 2,500 applications to offices across the country and embracing the responses, which in itself proved to be a huge undertaking for one person.
It’s really a lot for one person, we do such monitoring as an organisation, using the association’s IT infrastructure, we also have the association’s office, full-time employees.
Indeed! And it probably wouldn’t have been possible without the support received from the Henryk Wujec Civic Fund. And today I’d probably try to use the mechanism for mining to do that [https://fedrowanie.siecobywatelska.pl/]. In the end, the change was not achieved, but based on some of the responses from the offices, I dare to believe that the seeds have been planted and who knows what time will bring. I encourage those interested in the details of the entire project to read the report here.
I know you also handle home education. I’m wondering if awareness and active exercise of the right to information somehow help with this?
The relationship that I see here, and that was largely behind the decision for my daughter to meet her compulsory education outside of school, is somewhat different in my opinion. The traditional system of education – in the sense of the regulations that create it, but also in the sense of their implementation, from school boards, teachers to parents – through the model of upbringing and education unreflectively and repeated for generations, which is closer to training than to modern achievements of pedagogy, methodology, neurobiology and other sciences, hinders the active exercise of any civil rights, because it develops in the child a humble, submissive attitude and absolute respect for authorities, even those who have been appointed. Children’s creativity is smothered, their own opinions are unwelcome, their needs are ignored. This is not an environment that supports in any way an attitude of engaging with public affairs.
This is a topic that our member Alina Czyżewska has been raising for a long time and that is now also coming up in the #FreeSchool campaign.
That’s right! I could go on and on with examples of specific regulations, provisions, customs, common behaviours and attitudes that make up this whole archaic system, but I don’t want to get into Alina’s shoes. A fish rots from the head down, let me give you one meaningful example. In March this year I came across information about a competition organised by the Ministry of Justice, the purpose of which was to, among others: “shape (…) civic attitudes and involvement in social life, as well as engage young people in legal education at the local level.”
Sounds interesting, and what was the competition task?
If you are wondering by what means such a goal can be achieved and you would think that it could be, for example, obtaining and creatively using information from local public sector entities or bringing about some kind of change at the local level by using appropriate tools…
It would make sense…
…then you’re right: you would think. The competition was essentially a creative presentation of legal issues in a literary form (a poem was the first example), an artistic form (e.g., a poster) or a multimedia form (e.g., a short film). Even if the starting point for these works were tasks, sometimes even related to a field visit, for the purposes of the competition, according to the regulations, only the creativity and quality of presentation in the chosen form were subject to assessment. This is the national authorities’ idea of shaping civic attitude. At a time when school statutes are teeming with errors, legal absurdities and illegal provisions, you can show your civic attitude by writing a poem.
Curtain.
Another notable example, which comes back like a boomerang in parent groups or education groups in general, is how teachers mark exercises like: Johnny has two baskets with three apples in each. How many apples does Johnny have? The child writes, for example, 3*2=6 and the teacher marks in red and gives 0 points, or – the more generously – half a point. Because 2*3=6 in the answer key. Seriously, I’ve seen dozens of examples of this in various notebooks or exercises. And now the cherry on top, showing how deep is a hole we are in within the scope of public awareness: under every such post there are a lot of statements, including those of parents, fiercely claiming that the assignment was graded correctly. Eh…
Then I guess I don’t have any more questions when it comes to education… We talked a little bit about working alone and working together as a larger team. And how did you come across us, the Citizens’ Network Watchdog Poland?
At first, I tried to do something on my own, which was actually kind of sad and gloomy, until I came across a recruitment advertisement for the Watchdog School. I applied, I came and… I stayed. Involvement in School of Watchdog Initiatives, as well as parallel involvement in ongoing Citizens Network Watchdog Poland activities, resulted in a quietly anticipated invitation to join my all-time favourite NGO. In other words, everything happened the way it was supposed to happen.
Thank you very much for the “all-time favourite NGO”, it warms my heart. Speaking of Watchdog, what is the right to information for you?
In a way, everything. The right to information is, by its very nature, the most important of all human rights and all other rights for a very simple reason: none of the other rights will be able to be claimed if they take away our right to information. And, reversing that, we can strive for each of the other rights until only that one right is taken away.
This is valuable insight, but probably still not very popular.
Knowledge is power, we know that and how often we do not appreciate it properly. There is a lot of work that needs to be done by our society. How many discussions are held at the level of appealing to emotions instead of facts. For example, it is enough to say that the proposed law aims at this or that, and almost the entire social and media discourse stops at this level: the question of what really results from the provisions of the law recedes into the background. And yet, in the end, the only thing that matters is how this law will actually work, and that’s what it would be worth fighting about.
That’s right. And then there’s the traditional birthday question. The Citizens’ Network recently celebrated its 18th birthday. What do you wish the Network for its 18th anniversary?
Paradoxically, I wish it were no longer necessary. Because that would mean that we have built a world in which the right to information is obvious and unquestionable and citizens themselves uphold and nurture that right. I can afford to make that wish because I know it will never come true. Power, as if by definition, by its own nature, always seeks to increase its power, always tries to limit civil rights, and always extends its umbrella to more and more spheres of social life. And that means trying to knock people’s hands away, or at least eliminate their most important weapon in the first place: the right to information.
I have this dream too, by the way it often comes up in our watchdog conversations. But it may indeed be difficult to implement them. We’ll see what the future holds and what we’ll talk about on the next Watchdog anniversary. Thank you so much for the conversation!
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