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Republic of France

ACT No. 78-753 of 17 July 1978

On various measures for improved relations between the Civil Service and the public and on various arrangements of administrative, social and fiscal nature

(excerpt)

(Official Journal of 18 July 1978, page 2851) as amended by Act No. 2000-321 of 12 April 2000 (consolidated text)

The French National Assembly and the Senate have adopted this Act, which the President of the French Republic has promulgated:

Part 1

Freedom of access to administrative documents

Article 1

(Act No. 79-587 of 11 July 1979, article 8; Act No. 2000-321, article 7, 1° and 2°)

This Part specifies and guarantees the right of everyone to information as far as the freedom of access to administrative documents is concerned.

For the purposes of this Part, "administrative documents" shall mean any files, reports, studies, records, minutes, statistics, orders, instructions, ministerial circulars, memoranda or replies containing an interpretation of positive law or a description of administrative procedures, recommendations, forecasts and decisions originating from the State, territorial authorities, public institutions or from public or private-law organisations managing a public service. These documents may be written matters, audio or video recordings, documents on a data-processing medium or documents obtainable through any currently used automated process.

For the purposes of this Part, proceedings of the parliamentary assemblies, recommendations issued by the Conseil d'État and administrative jurisdictions, documents of the State Audit Office (Cour des comptes) referred to in article L. 140-9 of the financial jurisdiction code together with documents of the regional audit chambers referred to in article L. 241-6 of the latter code, documents regarding the investigation of complaints referred to the Ombudsman of the Republic and documents prior to the drafting of the health-organisation accreditation report provided for in article L.710-5 of the code of public health shall not be considered as "administrative documents".

Article 2

(Act No. 2000-321, article 7, 3°)

Subject to the provisions of article 6, the authorities referred to in article 1 shall be bound to hand over administrative documents in their possession to all persons applying for production of them in accordance with the conditions provided for in this Part.

The right to delivery shall apply to completed documents only. It shall not apply to documents that are instrumental in an administrative decision until the latter has been taken. Such a right cannot be exercised once the circulation of the documents is public. It shall not apply to those documents produced under a contract of service provision executed on behalf of one or several specified persons.

The appealed public service shall not be bound to allow requests that appear unreasonable either because of their number or because of their repetitive or systematic nature.

Article 3

Subject to the provisions of Act No. 78-17 of 6 January 1978 on Data processing and individual liberties regarding personal data contained in files, everyone shall have the right to know information contained in an administrative document whose submissions are set up against him/her.

On his/her request, his/her observations regarding the aforementioned submissions must be written down as an annex to the document concerned.

The use of an administrative document in disregard of the above provisions is forbidden.

Article 4

(Act No. 2000-321, article 7, 4°)

Access to administrative documents may be given :

a) by way of on-the-spot, free-of-charge consultation, unless the preservation of the document makes it impossible to do so,

b) provided that reproduction does not adversely affect the preservation of the document, by the supplying of an easily intelligible copy on a medium identical to the one used by the public service or on paper, according to the requesting person's preference within the limits of what is technically possible to the public service and at the requesting person's own expense, without such expense exceeding the reproduction cost, under such conditions as provided for by decree.

Article 5

(Act No. 2000-321, article 7, 5°)

A committee called "Committee of Access to Administrative Documents" is in charge of seeing to the respect of the freedom of access to administrative documents and public archives, in such conditions as provided for by this Part and by Part II of Act No. 79-18 of 3 January 1979 on archives. It issues recommendations when receiving the complaint of a person having difficulty in obtaining the delivery of an administrative document or in consulting public archives, except for those documents described at 3o of article 3 of the aforementioned Act No. 79-18 of 3 January 1979. The submission of a case to the Committee for recommendation is a compulsory prerequisite before any appeal to an administrative court. The Committee advises the proper authorities on any matter related to the implementation of this Part and aforementioned provisions of the above-mentioned Act No. 79-18 of 3 January 1979. It may propose, at the request of the authority concerned or on its initiative, any change in such provisions and any measure for the easier exercise of the right of access to administrative documents and public archives and for better administrative openness or transparency.

The Committee produces an annual report that shall be made public. Among other things, this report summarises the main difficulties encountered by requesting people, depending on the various categories of documents and archives.

A decree by the Conseil d'État shall determine the membership and functioning of the Committee provided for by this article.

Article 5-1

(Act No. 2000-321, article 7, 6°)

The Committee of Access to Administrative Documents also has the power, under such conditions as provided for in articles 2 and 5, to examine all matters related to the access to those administrative documents referred to in the following provisions :

- article L. 2121-26 of the general code of territorial authorities ;

- article L. 28 of the electoral code ;

- b of article L. 104 of the book of taxation procedures ;

- article L. 111 of the book of taxation procedures ;

- article 5 of the act of 1 July 1901 on the association contract and article 2 of the decree of 16 August 1901 ;

- article 79 of the local civil code of Alsace-Moselle ;

- articles L. 213-13 and L. 332-29 of the town-planning code ;

- article L1111-7 of the code of public health.

Article 6

(Act No. 2000-321, article 7, 7°)

I. Shall not be handed over, the following administrative documents whose consultation or delivery would be harmful to :

- the secrecy of the proceedings of the Government and proper authorities coming under the executive power ;

- the national defence secrecy ;

- the conduct of France's foreign policy ;

- the State's security, public safety and security of individuals ;

- the currency and public credit ;

- the proper conduct of proceedings begun before jurisdictions or of operations preliminary to such proceedings, unless authorisation is given by the authority concerned ;

- actions, by the proper services, to detect tax and customs offences ;

- or, in a general way, to secrets protected by the law. cannot be handed over.

II. Can only be handed over to the person involved, administrative documents :

- whose delivery would be harmful to privacy, to the secrecy of personal files, to medical secrecy or to trade and manufacturing secret ;

- passing remarks or value judgement on a natural person, referred to by his/her name or easily identifiable ;

- showing the behaviour of a person, the disclosure of which could harm the latter.

(Act No.2002-303 of 4 march 2002) - Information of medical nature shall be handed over to the person involved, directly or through a doctor, in accordance with his/her choice under the conditions provided for by the provisions of the article L.1111-7 of the code of public health.

Article 6bis

(repealed by Act No. 2000-321, article 7, 8°)

Article 7

(Act No. 79-587 of 11 July 1979, article 10-I)

"Denial of delivery shall be notified to the citizen through written and reasoned notification". (paragraph 2 repealed by decree No. 88-465 of 28 April 1988, article 1) When a complaint against a decision denying the delivery of an administrative document has been submitted to an administrative judge, the latter shall give a verdict within a period of six months from the lodging of the complaint.

Article 8

Unless provision is made for an implicit decision of denial or a tacit agreement, any individual decision taken on behalf of the State, of a territorial authority, of a public corporation or any organisation, be it of a private nature when in charge of managing a public service, can be binding on the person concerned only if the latter has received prior notification.

Article 9

1. All ministerial orders, instructions, circulars, memoranda and replies containing an interpretation of positive law or a description of administrative procedures, and

2. the reference of administrative documents shall be published regularly. A decree enacted by the Conseil d'État after recommendation by the Committee of Access to Administrative Documents shall establish the implementing provisions of this article.

Article 10

The handing over of administrative documents is subject to copyright.

The exercise of the right to delivery as set up by this Part shall exclude, for its beneficiaries or third parties, that of reproducing, distributing or using the documents handed over for commercial purposes.

Article 11

(rescinded)

Article 12

The provisions of this part shall not be considered as an obstacle to the implementation of article L. 121-19 of the township (commune) code.

Article 13

(Act No. 2000-321, article 7, 9°)

The depositing in the Public Record Office (public archives) of administrative documents that may be handed over under this Part shall not be considered as an obstacle to the right to delivery of such documents at any time.

Administrative documents which cannot be handed over within the meaning of this Part shall be made available for consultation after expiration of the prescribed time and under such conditions as provided for by articles 6 and 7 of the aforementioned Act No. 79-18 of 3 January 1979.