The legal regime of public records requests in Georgia
Public records requests in Georgia are governed not by a separate statute but by the freedom-of-information norms of the General Administrative Code. This is an institution of administrative law: its object is information held by public agencies, and its purpose is the transparency of the work of government. One common misunderstanding is set aside on this page: requesting one's own personal data is not done through the public records institution — that falls under a different regime of personal data protection, whereas here we deal with public information.
The corresponding chapter of the General Administrative Code defines what public information is, who and how must release it, and within which deadlines. Knowledge of these norms matters for both sides: for a citizen, a journalist and a business — to know what may be requested and within which period a response must arrive; for a public agency — to avoid groundless refusal and the violation of deadlines.
The general rule of accessibility of public information
The rules on accessibility of public information are defined in Article 28 of the General Administrative Code. Under its first part, public information is open, except for cases provided for by law and information classified, under the established procedure, as state, professional or commercial secret or as personal data. This is the presumption of openness: information is open insofar as it does not belong to any protected category, and it is precisely the agency that bears the burden of establishing a ground for closing it.
The second part of the same article obliges a public agency to ensure the proactive publication of public information in the manner and under the conditions established by the relevant subordinate normative act. Proactive publication does not release the agency from the duty to release the same or other information in the established manner upon request. Questions of the release and publication as public information of the text of an act of a court adopted as a result of an open court session are resolved in accordance with the Organic Law on Common Courts.
Which information is closed
From the general rule of openness it follows that only defined categories are closed. Under the relevant norm of the Code, information classified as a state secret is defined by the legislation on state secrets — the boundaries of this category are set by a separate legal act. The first part of Article 28 names the remaining closed categories: information classified under the established procedure as a professional or commercial secret, and personal data.
The practical conclusion is simple: refusing a request is lawful only where the information actually belongs to one of these protected categories. Any other reason — workload, internal rules or mere unwillingness — does not serve as a lawful ground. Where an agency justifies a refusal by secrecy, the category of the secret and the classification procedure must be indicated precisely.
The release of information between public agencies
A separate rule governs the case where one public agency needs personal data or information classified as a commercial secret held by another. Under the relevant norm of the Code, a public agency is obliged, on the basis of a proper written request, to release to another public agency, in the form of a certificate, the personal data or commercial-secret information it holds that is necessary for resolving a matter, provided it submits the written consent of the person whose personal data or secret the information represents.
The written consent is deemed given where the person expresses, in an application or another written document, consent for the public agency from which he or she requests the resolution of a matter to obtain the data or commercial-secret information from the corresponding agency. The agencies releasing and requesting such data are obliged to protect its secrecy. This rule is often needed in resolving social, tax or licensing matters.
Deadlines for the release of public information
Article 40 of the Code establishes the release deadlines, and this norm is the most practically significant part of a request. A public agency is obliged to release public information, including information requested in electronic form, immediately or no later than 10 days. The use of the term is allowed only in three cases, where giving a response requires: the search and processing of information from a structural subdivision in another settlement or from another public agency; the search and processing of a significant volume of mutually unrelated separate documents; or consultation with a subdivision in another settlement or another public agency.
Where the 10-day period is needed for the release of information, the public agency is obliged to notify the requester of this immediately upon the request. This means that silence while waiting for the term to expire is inadmissible: the notice on the use of the term must be given immediately, at the moment of the request. An agency's internal planning must be fitted to these deadlines so that the response is given within the period established by law.
The decision on release or refusal
Under the relevant norm of the Code, in the case provided for by law a public agency adopts a decision on the release of public information or on refusal of release as soon as the terms indicated in that article expire. This means that at the moment of expiry the requester must already have either the information or a decision on refusal — necessarily one of the two.
The format of submitting a request, the requester's rights and the detailed appeal procedures are defined by other norms of the Administrative Code, so their precise application must be examined separately in each concrete case. At the same time, the general administrative remedies for appealing a refusal — before a superior organ and before a court — remain available.
The Legal.ge team will help you formulate a public records request correctly, control the deadlines and appeal a refusal decision. We will also help determine whether the desired information belongs to a protected category and, on that basis, build a reasonable legal strategy.