Cambodia’s Ministry of Information has launched a website to collect suggestions about a draft freedom of information law, The Phnom Pen Post reports.
The website, www.a2i.info.gov.kh, was created in conjunction with UNESCO with support from the Swedish government. It includes a draft of the proposed public information law with comment sections where “visitors can write comments or requests for each article,” according to MoI spokesman Ouk Kimseng. The site is in both Cambodian and English.
The law will be fully drafted by 2018, the spokesman said.
UNESCO communication specialist Jamie Lee said the site is part of a three-year drafting process. She said collaborative group known as the A2I Technical Working Group convenes with public and private organizations monthly to discuss the law.
UNESCO hopes this will serve as “a model for drafting legislation in Cambodia in the future,” Lee is quoted a saying. “So far, it has been a great collaboration.”
“An ideal access to information legislation in Cambodia will promote maximum disclosure and open government; have limited scope for exceptions; and protect whistle-blowers,” she added.
A Swedish official said the government has provided nearly $1 million to help the drafting process.
Chak Sopheap, executive director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, called the website “a positive and remarkable move given the government’s recent history in withholding drafts of the law. Sopheapin early 1025 wrote about the need for a FOI law.
“Yet, for this initiative to truly be meaningful, the feedback must be taken into account in the final version of the law, otherwise it will be meaningless; simply another empty gesture by the government,” Sopheap told the newspaper.
The Interior Ministry since January 2015 been writing a state secrecy law.
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