Investigative journalism in e-State Estonia

Tarmo VahterWeekly newspaper Eesti Ekspress

www.ekspress.ee

Where to find the information?

The Estonian Way

• Estonia has since 2001 the Freedom of Information Law (Avaliku Teabe Seadus).

• It has really changed the Estonian journalism.

• I will tell you about 3 different cases, where I have found interesting information from the Internet.

1) Documents registers

• Every government office in Estonia must publish the register of correspondence on its website.

• You will see who has sent the letters for the office and what the topic was.

• If you want to read the original letter, you have to send a FOIA request.

• In 5 days time the government office must send you the copy of the letter.

The register of correspondence of the Ministry of Justice

• http://www2.just.ee/jdocs

In 2006 I found an interesting letter about Congo in this register

• http://www2.just.ee/jdocs//?grupp=sisse&meta=mkp&otsi=11.09.2006

I made a FOIA

request and got

the original

document.

CLAIM: Ex-prime minister Tiit Vähi is doing illegal mineral

business in Congo!?

Story in Eesti Ekspress

2) Central commercial register and land register

• https://ar.eer.ee/

• Everybody can use the Estonia´s central commercial register and land register.

• It is not free of charge – you have to pay about 50 cents–1 euro for each search.

• You can do good stories, if you use both of the databases.

• In 2008 I just accidentally noticed that the private company of politician Heiki Kranich was registered at the address Tuvi 12/3.

It is a top apartment house in the city centre of Tallinn.

Let´s check the land register!

• https://www.just.ee/kravalik/Login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fkravalik%2fDefault.aspx

...the results

What did I find?

• The land register showed that it was a big 160 m2 apartment.

• The owner of the apartment was not Heiki Kranich, but an unknown company Luksi Maja.

• Back to the commercial register!

...and the results were:

What did I find now?

• One of the owners of the company Luksi Maja was Koit Uus - a very rich businessman.

• Uus had recently made a big land deal with the ministry of environment.

• Guess who was the minister of environment back then?

Heiki Kranich, who is now living in his luxury apartment.

Story in Eesti Ekspress

3) Archival Information System

• http://ais.ra.ee/• Database of National Archives of Estonia. • It enables everyone to get information

about a record on the Internet. • There are more than 5 million records.• You can not see the documents

themselves, you have to go to the archive to read them.

• In 2006 I got a tip that some political parties have handed their documents to the National Archives.

• I made a search with the name Isamaa (Pro Patria Union) – it´s the most important conservative party in Estonia.

Bingo!

A lot of documents... What´s this? Bookkeeping?

Unbelievable!

• They have handed every financial document from the year 1993 to the National Archives.

• Nobody had read them before.

• There where even original documents of the bank transfers.

• When Pro Patria´s leader Mart Laar was the prime minister of Estonia, his party was secretly collecting money from the state-owned enterprises.

My Story in Eesti Ekspress

Summary

• It´s possible to find very interesting things from the Estonian databases.

• You can make good stories very cheaply

• You just have to now where to look.

• And it´s very important to be patient