Journalists are mobilizing to facilitate their access to public documents

They are asking for more transparency. Twelve journalists from major French media announced on Wednesday January 12 that they had founded a collective which aims to support members of the profession in their requests for access to administrative documents with the courts. His first initiative: the launch of a kitty to allow a request to the Council of State about the refusal of the Domaine de Chambord to communicate the list of guests to the presidential hunts. The legal costs for this procedure alone amount to 5,000 euros minimum, ensures this new Association of Journalists for Transparency (AJT).

Founded on December 8, 2021 by journalists from several media including The world, Mediapart or even The chained Duck, she “aims to bring together and support journalists in their efforts, often time-consuming and sometimes expensive, to gain access to public documents in all areas that are in the general interest: environment, health, use of public money, lobbying “, wrote the collective in a press release. This access is “guaranteed by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and guaranteed by Law No. 78-753 of July 17, 1978”, recalls the association.

Yet she believes it to be a “obstacle course” Who “begins with a request to the institution, then to the Commission for Access to Administrative Documents (Cada), before an appeal to the administrative tribunal, and finally, a request to the Council of State, with the costs of justice that goes with “.

Chaired by Laura Motet, journalist at World, the AJT therefore aims to “to formalize good practices with the profession, to help each other in the process, and if necessary to participate in the financing of an appeal before the Council of State, which requires the appeal of a lawyer”, explains the collective, which told AFP to have already received “About ten” membership requests from “journalists, certain media and associations”.