SECTOR 1 of its members on 11 December 2014, the Commission took its oath in May 2015 and began carrying out its activities. Focal points responsible for information are in the process of being established in the public administration bodies. Although this law constitutes an excellent initiative, panellists noted that it does, however, contain some restrictions on public documents. They explained that it is still difficult to obtain documents in the public interest, and noted that waiting periods to obtain a document are relatively long. In effect, Article 12 of the CAIDP stipulates that: “a public body referred to for a request for access to information is held to follow up such request in a minimum delay of 30 days from the date of receipt of the request. The requests emanating from researchers and professional journalists are handled in a delay period of 15 days”. However, Article 13 anticipates that a contacted public body may renew this delay period once. At the expiry of these delay periods the public body can then give notice of a prorogation to the applicant, who will then have the right to petition for an appeal before the Commission. Furthermore, there are cases where no favourable outcome is guaranteed at the request of private citizens, as explained by a journalist on the panel, who provided the example of receiving no response when making an enquiry regarding a case of fraud at the university. To date (22 May 2016), the letter that he addressed to the police has not been followed up. In a country where the population does not have easy access to the Internet, it happens that money is paid for example, when it only concerns a request for simple information at the National Institute for Statistics (INS). Thus, one panellist pointed out that even when information is accessible, in most cases, it has to be paid for. Oftentimes, it is difficult to know if the content is true or not. Panellists agreed that there exists a challenge for better, more effective popularisation of the new law. Scores: Individual scores: 1 Country does not meet indicator 2 Country meets only a few aspects of indicator 3 Country meets some aspects of indicator 4 Country meets most aspects of indicator 5 Country meets all aspects of the indicator Average score: 2.6 (2012 = 2.6, 2009 = 2.3) AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER Côte d’Ivoire 2016 75