The Information and Documentation Department provides professional assistance to MPs and their associates in finding information and documents which they need to perform their everyday duties.
According to a Decision about Parliamentary Staff Service, the Information and Documentation Department “processes the documents to be debated on the floor of Parliament (…) The Department shall maintain and update information and documents in electronic form on the Intranet and Web-sites of Parliament, and secure relevant information for research and reference use.” (Narodne novine, no. 94/01). The Service shall process, store and make available bills in progress in printed form, as well as written transcripts of audio-recordings of plenary sessions.
On the basis of the data-bases it maintains, the Department additionally provides information on Parliament’s legislative activities – the duration of plenary sessions, items on the agenda, questions posed during “Question Time”, individual statements in debate by each MP, voting tallies, number of bills debated by Parliament, number of enacted laws and other regulations.
As a part of the information services provided by the Department, users can obtain:
documents pertaining to the work of Parliament, draft bills in all readings, amendments, brief minutes from sessions, and audio-recordings of sessions;
- texts of all laws of the Republic of Croatia;
- texts of international treaties ratified by the Republic of Croatia;
- data on the work and activities of MPs at plenary sessions;
- data on Parliament’s legislative activities;
- access to European Union laws and regulations;
- information on European and world parliaments, their composition, activities, standing orders, electoral results, and texts of foreign laws;
- individual facts;
- information on various European or international organisations;
- statistics;
- bibliographic information.
The Department has a collection of reference literature, and it holds the most important Croatian and foreign newspapers, magazines and journals. Its reading room has computers with Internet access.
The Department’s information services can be used by MPs and members of the Parliamentary Staff Service. External users, or clients, can submit written requests for information held by the Department or copies of documents archived by the Department directly to the Information and Documentation Department or the Secretariat of the Parliament.