The Paraguayan Senate Aug. 21 approved the Access to Information Act, accepting amendments proposed by the House.
A presidential signature is expected in the coming days, at which point Paraguay will be the 100th nation with a freedom of information law.
The House passed a bill May 28, amending a Senate-passed bill. The House altered Article 22, which defined classified information, in ways favored by ATI supporters. (See Freedominfo.org report.) See article about the latest action at Ultimahora.com (in Spanish)
“This is the biggest victory since in 2005 we started to promote the right of access to information and launched a campaign for a law,” one proponent wrote to Freedominfo.org.
“This law has strong provisions on active transparency that will allow to any person to access on line to the most relevant public information, it also has reasonable deadlines for the government to comply with ATI requests and, a distinctive characteristic, it has no exceptions: Article 22 establishes that the only exceptions are the ones already established by the law (or the ones that will be established in the future),” the advocate summarized.
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