Gaining access
By Maria Agustina Guerrero Posted Oct 1 2004
Forty years after American President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act into law, reporters throughout Latin America are trying to make access to information a reality in their countries.
As a result, laws regulating access to public information have been approved in Panama, Perú, Mexico, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic. Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil are still drafting ones.
“This is a new era in Latin America. The trend seems to be irreversible,” says Ricardo Trotti, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) coordinator of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information and director of the Press Institute.
“After the democratization of Latin America, it was natural to take a step further and evolve to more transparency,” says Rosental C. Alves, professor and Knight Chair in Journalism at the University of Texas in Austin and director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. But creating a freedom-of-information law is just the beginning of a long journey. It means little if the executive and judiciary branches of government fail to implement, observe and protect it.
“The problem is that some countries now have the law but lack the infrastructure for it to work,” Trotti says.
Difficulties include absence of standards in the information retrieving processes, conflicts regarding the amount of time allowed for agencies to respond, high costs for filing requests, meager penalties for noncompliance and lack of awareness by those who are supposed to use and observe the law.
“We are supposed to request information and get an answer within 30 days, but it’s usually a joke. They never respond,” says Británico J. Quesada, a reporter for El Siglo in Panama.
“Then you go to the Supreme Court, and 80 percent of the requests are denied. The information is supposed to be public, but government officials say it is ‘classified.’”
That, explains Trotti, may be related to a “historical lack of democratic habits in Latin America.”
“The legal and administrative systems in the region have been traditionally centralized, focusing on protecting the powerful instead of making them accountable,” Alves says.
Daniel Santoro, a reporter for Clarín in Argentina, knows that all too well. “I suffered it (the restrictions) when I was investigating the illegal sales of arms and ammunition to Croatia and Ecuador during the (Carlos) Menem administration,” he says. “It is difficult to get public documents without a law in Argentina.”
But even with a freedom-of-information law, getting public documents can be a hurdle. “We have seen cases where one agency denies access to public information, while other agencies have no problem giving it to reporters,” says Javier Casas, head of the legal department at Instituto Prensa y Sociedad, an association that promotes freedom of information and an independent press in Perú.
With results like those, some reporters believe that asking government officials for information can even be counter-productive, Casas explains, since “it alerts those same people you are trying to investigate.”
The key, Trotti says, is that journalists make people feel that everybody benefits from the law. “These laws are not just for reporters. They are for everybody.”
In fact, more than 90 percent of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in the United States come from citizens, not from the media, according to Alves, and if used frequently, the law can become “a vaccine against corruption,” he argues.
Angelina Nunes, a reporter for O Globo in Rio de Janeiro, knows that achieving true freedom of information in Latin America can take a while, but it is doable.
“We were successful trying to access public documents for our series ‘Bastidores do Poder,’” Nunes says. “We needed documents regarding the assets of state deputies that were archived in the Electoral Regional Tribunal (TRE). We set an interview with TRE’s president, Marcus Faver, and that same week, he released copies of all the documents we needed.”
But Nunes knows that some of her colleagues are still waiting for answers on other state issues they aretrying to investigate. The answer is to not give up.
“Public officials are not usually willing to release public documents, and they are not used to getting formal petitions through the justice system, either. But, as we saw with the TRE case, that can change. After our series (was published) other journals have also written articles asking TRE for information on some candidates’ assets. That means we have created a pattern that is being followed,” Nunes says.
“Some politicians have called TRE’s president and complained to him about his attitude for releasing the documents. They want to restrict our access to this kind of information. But we have to persevere and go through the legal system if necessary to get our information.”
The following is a list of countries that have passed laws on access to public information and those that are still working on them.
Panama
It was the first country in the region to approve a law on access to public information. The Transparency Law was approved by the Panamanian Congress in January 2002. Government regulations, though, are currently restricting that access.
Professional groups like IAPA are looking closely at the situation, but local journalists are not optimistic. “I have been trying to get information on the Supreme Court judges’ expenses on their cars without any luck. I will not waste any more time on it, since they are the ones that will decide on my petition anyway, and they will not give me any information that may harm them,” complains Quesada, the El Siglo reporter.
Peru
The Transparency and Access to Public Information Law was approved in August 2002 and became effective in January 2003.
The Peruvian government claims there have been 40,000 requests of public documents filed since the law went into effect, but Casas disagrees. “The government gets reports from its different agencies saying how many requests have been filed and how many have been answered,” Casas claims. “We’ve reviewed that report, and it was not well done. The actual figure is lower.”
Mexico
Mexico passed a federal law on access to public information last year. The debate was led by journalists, who invited others to join their organization, known as Grupo Oaxaca.
“I consider it the most spectacular case, because they were very efficient in mobilizing the decision makers,” said Alves. “The victory was historic because Mexico was one of the most secretive governments in the world.”
Before the law, says Alves, reporters would try unsuccessfully to get public records. One reporter, for instance, tried for months to find out how much the president’s salary was. The press secretary finally told him that the information was “confidential.” The reporter then asked him for a written statement and the official said: “Do you want a written statement? Here,” and handed him a piece of paper in which he wrote: “NO.”
“To have a country like that evolve into a law like this has been an extraordinary step,” Alves says.
As part of the new law, Mexico has created the Instituto Federal de Acceso a la Informacion Publica (IFAI) to guarantee that everybody can exercise his or her right to obtain public information. Citizens can log on the institute’s website (www.ifai.org.mx) or call a toll-free number. A campaign that features radio and TV spots has alsobeen designed to raise public awareness.
Some states and cities are working on local laws as well. But openness is not yet the standard, according to Pedro Enrique Armendares, executive director of the Centro de Periodistas de Investigacion.
The mayor of Mexico City, he said, is an example of how far Mexico is from a culture of transparency. “He opposed the law saying that it was too expensive, and it was not necessary because in his government everything is transparent and citizens have all the information they need since he holds a press conference every day at 6 a.m.,” Armendares says.
Ecuador
Ecuador’s president, Lucio Gutierrez, signed a law on access to public information in May, making Ecuador the fourth country to guarantee access to public documents in Latin America.
The debate took more than three years, and now Coalicion Acceso a Informacion, a not-for-profit organization formed to guarantee the law’s implementation, is working on the regulations that will make the access to public documents a reality for all Ecuadorians.
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is currently discussing the implementation of a law on access to public information that was recently approved. But the Dominican Republic is a country where “everybody knows everybody,” and that doesn’t seem to be helping the law’s chances to survive, fears El Caribe reporter Petra Savinon.
“Sometimes, when we are doing our job, people tell us: ‘Don’t you know who I am?’” Savinon says. “Like everywhere else, interests are protected, and then comes the censorship.”
Colombia
Colombia does not have a law on access to public information per se, but its constitution includes an article that guarantees citizens the right to request information from federal agencies. It was the first country in Latin America to enshrine the concept of access to public information in its constitution.
Paraguay
Paraguay is studying a project on access to public information, and professional organizations are following the process closely.
“We are being very careful about the contents of this law, because some politicians like to talk about introducing laws on access to public information, but what they are really doing is restricting the access,” Trotti says.
“They tried to introduce a law in Paraguay three years ago, and we firmly opposed it because the contents were very restrictive. This new project looks good, but we have to be careful.”
Argentina
For the last three years, media organizations have been fighting for a bill on access to public information. The proposal received half a vote at the House of Representatives, and it has been under discussion in several commissions of the Senate.
According to Santoro, chances of that proposal being discussed in the Senate sessions are not good, though. “They want to modify it, and that would mean going back to the House,” he says.
In the meantime, President Nestor Kirchner has passed a decree granting access to public information of all agencies of the executive branch of the federal government. The city of Buenos Aires adopted a similar law in 1998, and there are ongoing discussions in several provinces as well.
In Córdoba, Argentina’s second-largest province, a dispute between localnewspaper La Voz del Interior and theutility companies’ regulatory agency is a clear example of the obstacles journalists face when trying to access vital information for the community. Although Córdoba has a law on access to public information, the newspaper was denied repeatedly information on the quality of drinking water in the area. Public officials excuse themselves and blame bureaucracy for their lack of response. They disclosed the data after the newspaper took the case to court.
Brazil
Brazil is trying to emulate the experience of other countries but remains in the embryonic stages. Last September, the Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism, with support from the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, held an International Workshop on Access to Public Information in Brasilia. “The idea was to put the subject in the national agenda,” Alves says. “The Brazilian constitution says in its fifth article that we have the right to public information but it is not exercised because it needs a law.”
Congressman Mendes Ribeiro Filho has sponsored a bill, which is currently in congress.