The right to know
November 21, 2011 at 17:06
This is a re-posted blog article.
In many countries citizens have the right to get information about issues of public concern. But how well can these rights be exercised in practice? The results of what might be the largest comparative test of this were published recently, and they contain some good news for both New Zealand and the Philippines.
Researchers in 80 countries made the same requests for budget information, with six detailed questions on maternal health, aid effectiveness and environmental policies. Overall the results were disappointing — more than half the requests yielded no information at all, and only one in four led to full information being provided.
The good news for New Zealand is that we came out at the top of the table. Six questions generated six fully-compliant responses without any follow-up being needed — the only country where this happened. We weren’t the fastest responder, though, with an average of 32 calendar days. Our freedom of information legislation says the requested information must be provided “as soon as reasonably practicable”, and not more than 20 working days after the request is made. That’s about the same period as the time recorded in the trial, and extensions are possible for dealing with complex enquiries or if interdepartmental consultations are needed.
Some of the study’s findings aren’t a surprise. The longer a country has had freedom of information legislation, the better and faster the response rate. Our Official Information Act (as it’s called) was passed nearly 30 years ago, and equivalent provisions were extended to local government a few years later. How well government complies with the legislation is overseen by the ombudsman, as I’ve mentioned before.
The study also showed that countries with freedom of information legislation provided significantly more information than those without. No surprise there. And while no country without freedom of information legislation provided answers in the absence of reminders, the Philippines stood out by coming very close. This country doesn’t have freedom of information legislation, though the study’s authors pointed out that in the Philippines the constitutional guarantee of people’s right to information “has been used to some effect in practice to access information”.
It’s long been recognised in the Philippines that freedom of information legislation is needed to support the provisions in the 1987 constitution about access to information. In fact such legislation has been before congress since 1992, but still hasn’t been passed.
Soon after President Aquino took office Philippine business groups and foreign chambers of commerce urged him to see the freedom of information legislation given priority. In their report Arangkada, which I’ve mentioned before, the joint foreign chambers of commerce also proposed that in the meantime the president should issue an executive order instructing government agencies to release appropriate information on government policies and procurement.
Working under full public scrutiny does require a culture change by public servants (and government ministers). In New Zealand’s experience that comes more easily than you might expect. Now virtually a whole generation of officials and politicians has known no other environment.
As an independent review of our two freedom of information laws said last year: “overall the acts have achieved their purpose. They have changed the culture about the availability of official information. Our society is now much more open than it was”. One of the reviewers said: “The Official Information Act is one of the best things that has happened in government in the past 50 years. It has led to much more openness and made it much easier for people to find out what is going on in government”.
The right to know is an important part of a government’s accountability to its people.
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By: Ambassador Andrew Matheson, Ambassador of New Zealand to the Philippines
Source: New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade, Nov. 10, 2011
To view the original article, click here.
