Otvoreni Parlament (Open Parliament) is a joint initiative of five Serbian civil society organizations, including the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA), launched to increase the transparency of the Serbian parliament, inform the public about the parliament’s work, and the establish regular communication between citizens and MPs.
For the first time in Serbia, citizens have the opportunity to directly communicate with their MPs. Within its parliamentary monitoring and advocacy initiative, Otvoreni Parlament (Open Parliament), CRTA recently launched an online communication tool “Ask Your MP” that allows direct public communication between citizens and MPs. Although not as advanced as Parliament Watch from Germany, this tool provides a unique opportunity for citizens in Serbia to ask direct questions and demand accountability from their representatives. Citizens’ interest in engaging with their representatives was shown on the very same day of the launch, when over one hundred questions were sent to MPs and more than one thousand users visited the Open Parliament website within only five hours.
The Open Parliament website also provides comprehensive information about Serbian Parliament’s and individual MPs’ work. It provides public access to searchable parliamentary transcripts from all 1997–2013 plenary sessions (total of 160,000 parliamentary speeches and discussions), as well as to MPs’ biographies and various statistics and information about parliamentary work. CRTA is currently working to prepare and upload voting records that will also be available at the Open Parliament website.
Apart from the online activities of the Open Parliament website and social networks (Open Parliament Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages), CRTA recently organized the Accountability Bus Tour and visited 20 cities throughout Serbia, aiming to directly contact with citizens and motivate higher public engagement in parliamentary monitoring.
CRTA also conducted comprehensive research on parliamentary decision making practices and procedures, as well as on the existing parliamentary practices for communication with the public, developed recommendations and engaged in advocacy for their improvement.
CRTA launched the Open Parliament initiative as part of its continuous efforts to influence increased accountability in the work of the Parliament and MPs in Serbia and to empower oversight by citizens, CSOs and the media.
