What’s New
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13 November 2013
Cambodia Looks to Hasten Action on FOI Law Drafting
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen wants to speed up the drafting of a freedom of information law, according to an article by Meas Sokchea and Kevin Ponniah in the Nov. 10 Phnopen Phen Post. Sen told the Ministry of Information to accelerate the drafting, the newspaper reported, and to host a forum with journalists, civil […]
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12 November 2013
Challenges Faced in Mexico, Guatemala and Nicaragua
By Alejandro Martínez This article was published Nov. 11 on the Knight Center Journalism in the Americans blog. After decades of a culture of virtually impenetrable secrecy within the Mexican government, in 2002 Mexico passed the Federal Access to Information and Personal Data Protection Act. Since then, it has become an often-cited model of how other […]
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12 November 2013
Killing Freedom of Information in Ireland
By Gavin Sheridan The article appeared on The Story blog, where comments are accruing. We’ve had sight of new amendments to the FOI Bill 2013 proposed by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. We will be blunt: if passed, Freedom of Information is dead. TheStory.ie will, in all likelihood, cease all FOI requests. And […]
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11 November 2013
Sierra Leone: FOI is One Thing, Freedom of Press Another
By Amanda Vragovich Vragovich is the Assistant Program Officer for West Africa at the National Endowment for Democracy. This article appeared Nov. 7 in ThinkAfricaPress. On 31 October, after ten years of civil society activism, President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone signed into law the Right to Access Information Bill. The long-awaited freedom of […]
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11 November 2013
What the US National Action Plan is Missing
By Lauren Harper This article was published Nov. 8 in Unredacted, the blog of the National Security Archive The Open Government Partnership (OGP), an international coalition working to make governments more transparent and accountable, just wrapped up its latest summit in London. For the summit, each government was asked to “announce an ambitious new open […]
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8 November 2013
Zambia Hires Consultant to Evaluate FOI Legislation
The Zambian government is evaluating how to harmonize a potential freedom of information law with other laws, according to a top official who attended the Open Government Partnership summit in London. Speaking at a press conference Nov. 31, Mwsansa Kapeya, the Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services, said a local consultant has been hired for […]
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8 November 2013
Chile’s Supreme Court Orders Disclosure of Official E-mails
The Chilean Supreme Court of Justice has ordered the Ministry of Transport to release e-mails from public officials related to the modification of the public urban transport system in Santiago. The Supreme Court decided Nov. 6 that the disclosure of the e-mails about the Transantiago contracts doesn´t violate the privacy of the officials and that […]
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8 November 2013
U.S. Plans to Create FOI Advisory Group
The United States will create a “FOIA Modernization” advisory group, according to the Oct. 31 preview of its second Open Government Partnership action plan. The government also plans to develop a consolidated online portal for making FOIA requests. In addition, steps will be taken to develop a core federal FOIA regulation, while still allowing for […]
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8 November 2013
An FOIA request, answered ten years later
By Alasdair Roberts Roberts is Jerome L. Rappaport Professor of Law and Public Policy at Suffolk University Law School, Boston. This article ran on Nov. 5 in Roberts’ blog. Back around the turn of the millennium, I was doing a lot of writing on freedom of information laws and other topics relating to governmental openness. […]
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8 November 2013
FOI Notes: Funding, Open Data, More Open Data
Funding: Making All Voices Count: A Grand Challenge for Development announces its first ever Global Innovation Competition. At the event, the Making All Voices team emphasized that the competition is seeking new, original and innovative ideas from anywhere in the world, from companies, organisations, government agencies and individuals. The Competition opens on November 12, 2013 […]
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6 November 2013
The Potential Impact of Japan’s New State Secrecy Bill
By Joel Rheuben Rheuben is an Australian lawyer resident in Japan. He was previously an associate in the Tokyo office of Herbert Smith Freehills, and is currently pursuing postgraduate studies in law at the University of Tokyo. As recently reported on this site, on 25 October the Japanese government moved to introduce to the Japanese legislature the […]
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2 November 2013
Ideas Emerge to Bring Open Data, RTI Efforts Closer
Suggestions for improving cooperation between the open data and right to information communities emerged during a session Oct. 31 at the Open Government Partnership summit in London. The ideas came during a temperate discussion among persons from each community. One suggestion was to work together to compile example of access laws being used to get data […]
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1 November 2013
OGP Concludes Summit With New Commitments, Goals
By Toby McIntosh Thirty-seven members of the Open Government Partnership offered “brand new commitments” during the Oct. 31 – Nov. 1 London OGP summit. The list was announced near the end of the summit. Also revealed was the addition of Sierra Leone as the 62nd member after passage of a freedom of information law made them […]
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1 November 2013
First Evaluations Spark Reflection on OGP Effort
By Toby McIntosh The official launch Nov. 1 of the reports by independent reviewers about the national action plans of the founding members of the Open Government Partnership provides preliminary answers to several key questions about the OGP experiment Is it making a difference? How is the review process doing? The first eight evaluation reports […]
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31 October 2013
Indonesia, Mexico Outline Future Plans as OGP Chairs
Representatives of Indonesia and Mexico, the two countries that will chair the Open Government Partnership in the coming year, outlined their leadership goals at a session Oct. 31 at the OGP London summit. Tara Hidayat, deputy IV in the Indonesian Presidential Delivery Unit, said goals will be to maintain the health and ensure the sustainability […]
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31 October 2013
OGP Working Group on ATI Develops Tentative Agenda
An access to information working group was formed Oct. 31 in connection with the Open Government Partnership summit in London. The creation of three subgroups was proposed designed, to correspond to the stages of the OGP process: – To help government comply with the OGP access eligibility criteria and to consider strengthening the OGP access […]
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31 October 2013
OGP Opens Summit With Challenges, New Promises
The Open Government Partnership kicked off its second summit with more than 1,000 delegates gathered in London to share ideas and discuss national commitments. With New Zealand becoming the 61st member, the two-year old multi-stakeholder group was praised by speakers who also set new challenges for a maturing organization. A few OGP countries began to […]
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30 October 2013
Sierra Leone Passes Freedom of Information Bill; Now 96
The Sierra Leone Parliament Oct. 29 passed a Right to Access Information Act. See text here. “What is left is the presidential assent and we hope President Koroma will do that speedily,” commented FOI activist Emmanuel Saffa Abdulai. “This is a great victory to all of us and we must certainly enjoy it,” he said. […]
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30 October 2013
OGP Steering Committee Defers Civic Space Discussion
The Steering Committee of the Open Government Partnership Oct. 29 decided against establishing a task force on how the OGP should address emerging constraints on the media and civil society organizations. The discussion of protecting “civic space” is expected to continue, however, according to members of the Steering Committee representing civil society organizations, CSO members […]
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25 October 2013
London OGP Summit Will Be Coming Out Party for CSOs
By Toby McIntosh 19 months ago in Brazil, at the first Open Government Partnership summit, 150 delegates from civil society organizations (CSOs) finally got together as a group, very late in day on the last day of the conference, tired and somewhat frustrated. “Welcome to a work in progress,” began Warren Krafchik, the new OGP co-chair […]