ACTA secrecy continues in the European Parliament. Next week, the Trade (INTA) committee will meet to hear the presentation of an opinion on ACTA from the European Parliament's own internal legal services. The INTA committee has refused requests from campaigning groups to release the opinion, raising fears that it will support an official view of ACTA, and fail to address what are now becoming well-known non-compliance problems raised by this secretly-negotiated copyright enforcement treaty.

The INTA committee meeting on ACTA (Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement) will be held next Wedneday 23 November. The European Parliament Legal Service will present to the committee its considered opinion on ACTA, which has been prepared at the request of the INTA co-ordinators. But the presentation will be 'in camera'. That means behind closed doors, in secrecy. The MEPs on the INTA committee will be bound by confidentiality agreements not to divulge what they hear.

One of the roles of the European Parliament's legal services is to defend the Parliament's position when it is challenged. It also does provide advice on tricky aspects of law and policy. Given the high level of controversy over ACTA non-compliance with the EU acquis communitaire, the position taken by the legal services will be important. It is therefore a critical that the legal services opinion is examined in public.

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) has been campaigning for the release of the legal opinion, but has been refused. They wrote to the INTA committee chairman, Vital Moreira with a specific request. In his reply stated, Mr Moreira stated:

"the opinion of the Legal Service is, for the time being, a confidential document; therefore its presentation is foreseen to take place in an "in camera" part of the Committee meeting."

He also implied that there is a public interest reason for witholding the opinion - this does seem a little difficult to justify. The full text of the FFII request to the INTA committee and the response is here.

However, the INTA committee chairman has revealed there is an ACTA workshop planned for March next year. He has also indicated that there will be an exchange of views on ACTA which the public may attend, although he gave no date for it.

This whole episode gives me a strange sense of déjà vu. There was a similar situation in the Telecoms Package 3^rd Reading where there was an attempt to withold a legal opinion.Will EU lawyers white-out Amendment 138? In that instance, the opinion somehow emerged into the public domain.

As a serious comment, I would say that the legal opinion was very helpful in providing an understanding of the problem which the Parliament was facing at the time. An account of the 3^rd Reading is provided in my book The Copyright Enforcement Enigma

The INTA committee would be well advised to stop the cloak-and-dagger behaviour, and simply release the legal opinion.

Please cite Monica Horten, ACTA 'in camera' - the legal opinion they don't want you to see, www.iptegrity.com, 16 November 2011

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