The new regulation of public pay disclosure is disproportionate and does not meet the Constitution / Day

As stated on the Ombudsman’s website, information on the remuneration of officials is already available to the public.

The Ombudsman notes that on February 1, the requirement included in the Law on the State Administration Structure was to publish the name, position of the official on the website of the institution every month on the website of the Authority.

The Ombudsman states that the public is entitled to information on the use of state budget funds, but the new regulation of public remuneration is contrary to the Constitution’s right to privacy. The fact that authority officials receive income from the state budget does not make information on a particular person’s salary less valuable in the sense of privacy protection, the Ombudsman notes.

In order to call for the elimination of the regulation of non -compliance with the Satversme, the Ombudsman has applied to the Saeima and requested the legislature to decide on the exclusion of the regulation of the publication of the remuneration of new officials from the Law on Public Administration.

The Ombudsman has pointed to a number of major disadvantages of the new regulation.

First, the Ombudsman notes that there are other means to achieve the new regulation. Such regulation is already included in the Law on Remuneration of State and Local Government Officials and Employees, which provides for the disclosure of the remuneration of officials.

The Ombudsman explains that information on the salary calculated for a particular official may receive a person in a specified month by submitting a request for information. In addition, the declaration of a public official shall disclose the salary calculated for the official in the calendar year. As a result, even before the new regulation came into force, the public had publicly available information on the amount of public officials. In addition, there are currently two content different regulations on the issue of public remuneration, explains the Ombudsman.

Secondly, the Ombudsman points out that the new regulation poses significant risks to the privacy of officials. This applies to the processing of large amounts of personal data, whose control and storage restrictions cannot be ensured after their disclosure. Consequently, there is a risk that the published data will be processed for other purposes that contradict the purpose of the new regulation to inform the public about the use of state budget funds.

Third, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, the new regulation is vague, as it cannot be accurately identified for which officials apply to the new regulation, and how much information on remuneration is to be published. Such uncertainty could develop different institutions’ practices in providing information in the openness of information and thus create unequal attitudes.

The Ombudsman points out that the General Data Protection Regulation provides a definition of personal data – it is any information that allows the identification of a natural person, such as the name, surname, identification number, location data, online identifier, or one or more of the person concerned to the factor of physical, physiological, genetic, spiritual, economic, economic, culture or social identity. The Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights have acknowledged that the content of the rights of private life also includes the remuneration of human beings.