The Ombudsman informed the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning of the following: Article 13 of the Environmental Protection Act (ZVO-1) determines that environmental data are public. The public has the right to participate in procedures of adopting policies, strategies, programmes and plans that refer to environmental protection and in procedures of issuing concrete legal acts referring to developments in the environment, which means that it has the right to all data in such procedures. Article 108 of the ZVO-1 defines in detail the right to access environmental data. Paragraph two of Article 110 of the ZVO-1 defines environmental data. The definitions in these articles explain that environmental data is always public and cannot be deemed as a business or any other type of secret which would allow exemptions to the right to access as per the provisions of the Public Information Access Act (ZDIJZ). In its relation to the ZDIJZ, the ZVO-1 as lex specialis extends access to public information when determining that environmental data on emissions, waste and hazardous substances are always public, irrespective of prescribed exemptions. A broad right of the public also arises from the Act Ratifying the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention). Point three of Article 2 of the Aarhus Convention defines ‘environmental information’ as any information in any material form on the state of elements of the environment, such as air and atmosphere, water, soil, land, landscape and natural sites, biological diversity and its components. The Convention is also binding on all authorities of executive branch of power, natural persons and legal entities holding public authorisations or conducting public legal tasks with the exemption of authorities of judicial and legislative branches of power. The exemptions permitted by the Convention are subject to public interest tests. According to the Aarhus Convention, the request for environmental information may be rejected only when an authority does not dispose of the requested information, when the request is obviously unreasonable or too general or when it refers to incomplete or internal documents. For other exemptions, the Convention anticipates the application of a weighing test (weighing between disclosure and non-disclosure). While referring to Article 7 of the Human Rights Ombudsman Act, the Ombudsman proposed that the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning discuss complainants’ request as per the provisions of the ZDIJZ and informs us about its conduct or its decision within eight days. The Ministry rejected the request of the complainant in its entirety with its decision of 24 February 2015 and did not observe the Ombudsman’s notification about the right to access environmental data. The complainant filed a complaint against the Ministry’s decision. The Information Commissioner partly set aside the Ministry’s decision with a decision of 14 July 2015 and determined that the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning was obliged to provide the complainant with an electronic record (CD) containing the following files: (a) Final Phase II Environmental Site Assessment of the Cinkarna, Metalurško-kemična industrija Sites in Celje and Mozirje and (b) Figures and Appendices Phase II Environmental Site Assessment of the Cinkarna, Metalurško-kemična industrija Sites in Celje and Mozirje, in which it was obliged to render names, surnames, titles, addresses, e-mail addresses, signatures, phone and fax numbers anonymous within 31 days from the receipt of the decision. The complaint was justified. 7.0-3/2015 eliminate the backlogs. We added that we cannot report on progress in this regard and we hoped that the provision of the Decree on bodies affiliated to ministries, which made the Slovenian Environment Agency the body responsible for expert tasks of environment protection and management of land with water use, would contribute to the resolution of this several decades’ long story. In 2015, the Directorate for Water of the Republic of Slovenia was established as an affiliated body within the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning. We hope that this body will finally eliminate backlogs, end the need for a competent authority and resolve disputed ownership and property issues relating to land with water use. We intend to invite the management of the institution to a meeting and discuss how to resolve backlogs and unresolved issues. Example: (In)efficiency of the state when helping citizens affected by severe natural disasters The Ombudsman was contacted by a family whose house had been demolished by a landslide in September 2014 and which was also endangering nearby agricultural facilities. The family wanted to relocate their farm to one of the two locations where they owned agricultural land and where they wanted to build a new home and facilities for their agricultural activities. The locations were situated in two municipalities and a procedure amending the applicable municipal spatial plans would have to be conducted in both cases, whereby the intended use of (a part of) agricultural land into construction land would be amended, which would enable the relocation of the farm. Neither of these municipalities were planning to commence such a procedure in the near future and the procedure would take several years even if started in this year, which would be too long for the family, who were living separately with different relatives. Regarding this issue, one of the municipalities obtained preliminary opinions from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food and the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning which did not guarantee that both ministries would later provide positive opinions on the proposal to change the use of the land. This meant that the family had no guarantee that they could relocate their farm to any of their land plots even after a procedure that may take several years. When discussing the complaint, we received a clarification from one of the relevant municipalities that changing the use of the relevant land plots was possibly no longer urgent for the family, since they had already bought a new building plot. We verified this statement with the complainants, and it was established that the family had indeed bought a plot of building land, but they would only be able to build a house there and would not move the entire farm, since the new plot is too far from their agricultural land plots, which would make farming at such distances uneconomical. They were planning to give up farming, which could mean that the agricultural land plots that had previously been cultivated would be overgrown. On the basis of the relevant complaint, we determined that the state does not have a mechanism to allow for prompt and efficient assistance to citizens affected by severe natural disasters. Thus, in the specific case it would take unreasonably long if the problems of this family were to be arranged by amending the municipal spatial plan according to the regular procedure and if the family had not decided to purchase another real estate. It was also determined that, on the one hand, the state was trying to limit the trend of building on agricultural land in various ways by means of procedures for adopting municipal spatial plans, while on the other hand, this leads to the disuse of previously cultivated agricultural land due to lengthy procedures and the rigidity of the system in cases when prompt solutions are necessary (such as the case above). 7.2-3/2015 2.7.6 Noise In this Report, we are compelled to mention the issue of the backlogs relating to land with water use to which the Ombudsman has been drawing the attention for several years. In last year’s report, we again pointed out the unresolved ownership and property issues relating to land with water use, and demanded measures to We receive more complaints about disturbing noise in the environment every year, i.e. noise from catering facilities, roads, sports grounds etc. The problem occurs where various activities take place in residential areas and a conflict of interest arises because residents usually want peace and rest, but profit-seeking activities are also carried out in such environments. It is very difficult to harmonise conflicting objectives, so spatial planning is of the utmost importance, including the adoption of municipal spatial acts and the issuing permits for various activities by administrative units. Noise is a factor which must be considered particularly when planning the siting of certain activities in physical space (schools, kindergartens, hospitals, retirement homes, 108 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OMBUDSMAN OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA FOR 2015 2.7.5 Water-related issues and land with water use ANNUAL REPORT OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OMBUDSMAN OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA FOR 2015 109 2.7 ENVIRONMENT AND SPATIAL PLANNING 2.7 ENVIRONMENT AND SPATIAL PLANNING confidential and that the company Cinkarna Celje had decided that access to the document was possible only at its head office. Information relating to the report was on the website of the company Cinkarna Celje. The Ministry also stated that it had received the final report for administrative purposes on 15 December 2014, that it was very extensive and in English.