European parties to the Aarhus Convention have made the law-making process as accessible as an Internet chat room. — By Kaidi Tingas   Photo: COURTESY OF JURG SAMEL, ESTONIAN MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT SIGN ON: Estonia is the region's champion in Internet access and electronic governance. Among other things, governments who have signed the Aarhus Convention have to improve public access to environmental information in electronic form. Databases available on the Internet satisfy the requirement. A task force of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe has formed in accordance with the convention, which relates to access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters. The group brings together 19 countries and international organisations such as the REC, the World Bank, and the Ecoforum coalition of NGOs. The body will discuss effective use of electronic information tools, examples of good practice in the field and the need for and means of dis- seminating environmental information to the public in electronic form. On the basis of input from parties to the convention, four priority issues emerged: the use of information and communication technology to facilitate public participation in environmental matters, the establishment of information centres in virtual and physical environments, identification strategies for active communication and dissemination of information, and the means of overcoming of legal, financial and technological barriers to Internet access. Among the Aarhus Convention's 25 signatory states, five are from Central and Eastern Europe. Authorities in Estonia have been particularly keen on the use of information and computer technologies for good governance. Tana Otsustan Mina (TOM, or "Today I Make Decisions") can be viewed at . The Estonian site is one of the best electronic tools for public participation in state decision-making processes. All the government's ministries post their draft legislation on the portal for public commenting periods. Citizens can submit their own ideas about the drafts, or comment on proposals submitted by others or elaborated by ministries during the creation phase. Ideas that gain support from users are to be submitted by a prime minister's resolution to the relevant agencies. The public has continuous access and can monitor what happens to the idea. To participate, prior registration is required. More than 430 ideas have been submitted in TOM in the two years since it was launched. These ideas have been used for the development of legislation in several government agencies. About 10 acts based on electronically submitted ideas are in the signing stage (an idea must collect a certain amount of signatures before it goes to a ministry for amendment) . More than 10 draft laws are under elaboration in the ministries. TOM won a European Commission award at a November 2001 e-government conference in Brussels. Another Estonian initiative related to Internet law drafting came from the non- governmental organisation Estonian Law Centre. The Third Sector Internet Forum on Law Drafting cooperates with ministries in order to present draft laws (together with explanatory notes and lists of especially acute problems on the Internet). They also alert third-sector associations whom the draft concerns and invite them to express their views. There is a time limit for the legislative process, after which the forum closes discussion and conclusions are drawn. These are presented in the form of an official document to the pertinent ministry for reply. If a ministry refuses to present a draft law to the forum before it goes out to other ministries for concordance, the forum submits its proposals and comments directly to Parliament. The forum aims to gain access as early as possible to draft laws, because the time limit for concordance is too short to ensure proper consideration of civil society's concerns. — Kaidi Tingas is a project manager at the REC's Public Participation Programme

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