Liberia: President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has created an Inter-Ministerial Committee on Women’s Access to Information, led by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and the Ministry of Information, “to develop appropriate policy framework and reforms that address any constraints and guarantees women’s access to information,” according to her statement.
SDGs: A letter from 238 civil society organizations urges the United Nations to encourage interactive and transparent creation of the voluntary reviews that 14 nations will conduct to measure their progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. “National review processes need to be strengthened to be more inclusive, transparent, effective, and participatory, as well as better able to capture successes and learnings, and to make corrective adjustments, when necessary.”
India: The Supreme Court has asked the Law Commission of India to examine the issue of bringing Cricket Board (BCCI) under the ambit of RTI Act. Such a move was proposed by the Lodha Committee, most of whose other recommendations covering wide-ranging aspects of Indian cricket were accepted by the Court. But the Court said RTI coverage was a matter for Parliament to decide, according to an article in The Economic Times and another in ESPN.
United States: Mug shots can be withheld by federal authorities due to privacy concerns, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rules, according to the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press.
Bangladesh: The Management and Resources Development Institute (MRDI) announces a lessons-learnt report and a video documentary “Tearing the Veil of Secrecy,” an initiative on RTI in Bangladesh. “The document is a compilation of the background and proceedings of the first ever RTI camp in Bangladesh, lessons learnt from it, some success stories and recommendations on future direction.”
India: “Nuclear weapons details shifted out of RTI purview,” according to an article by Aman Sharma in the Economic Times. The Strategic Forces Command has been added to the list of 25 organizations excluded from the purview of the RTI Act except for information pertaining to corruption or human right allegations.
Kosovo: “A Pristina court has ruled that the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council, KPC, must disclose its disciplinary decisions against prosecutors, as requested by BIRN Kosovo, adding that withholding such information breaches Kosovo’s laws and constitution,” according to Balkan Insights. The case was brought by the Investigative Reporting Network in Kosovo.
India: The government in Kerala says that the decisions made in cabinet meetings do not fall under the ambit of RTI Act, as ordered by the Kerala Information Commission. The state government is appealing the decision, according to an article in Manorama Online.
France: An account of ongoing efforts on open contracting in France and Britanny (in French).
Open Data/Agricultural: The International Open Data Charter (ODC) in conjunction with the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) initiative, the Open Data Institute (ODI) and Open Data for Development (OD4D) network are developing a domain specific open data implementation guide for the agriculture sector. In June, GODAN announced a challenge seeking individuals who can articulate and/or create practical solutions that will contribute to the open data infrastructure while solving specific challenges in agriculture and nutrition.
Bangladesh: “Seventh anniversary of RTI in Bangladesh: Time for introspection,” commentary by Shamsui Bai and Ruhi Naz, Chairman, Research Initiatives, Bangladesh (RIB) and Project Coordinator (RTI section) of RIB respectively.
Transparency Journalism: A newspaper in Maryland, The Sentinel, has started a regular column documenting official resistance to transparency (“walls”) and instances of openness (“windows.)
United States: The Office of Management and Budget and Office of Science and Technology Policy issue new guidance to encourage agencies on their open government plans by Sept. 15, also described in a blog post. On FOIA, the guidance says, “If your agency has a significant backlog, your plan should detail how your agency will reduce its backlog by at least 10 percent each year.”
Open Data: “Especially for complex social issues like migration and integration, there is a pressing need to understand why certain policies work and others do not,” writes British researcher Dominik Hangartner, with examples based on Swiss data he requested.
United States: A new lawsuit alleges that the Department of Justice intentionally conducts inadequate searches of its records using a decades-old computer system when queried by citizens looking for records that should be available to the public, The Guardian reports. FOIA researcher Ryan Shapiro alleges “failure by design” in the DoJ’s protocols for responding to public requests.
Environmental Transparency/United States: Washington, DC, published a granular, house-level map of the city’s lead pipes, according to a VOX article.
Open Data/UK: A wide range of businesses across the UK are realizing the potential of open data, according to Econsultancy.
United States: On June 30, 2016, President Obama signed into law the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, which contains several substantive and procedural amendments to the FOIA. OIP has prepared a summary of the amendments as well as a redlined version of the statute that shows the changes made by the amendments. OIP has released its first guidance piece addressing the new amendments. The guidance addresses the new requirements for agency response letters and for notices extending the FOIA’s time limits due to “unusual circumstances.” See blog post.
Sri Lanka: Sanjana Hattotuwa writes about the loss of records on missing persons, saying: “The absolutely appalling approach to the management of records and archives will invariably undermine the implementation of Right to Information legislation. Government and public authorities may at first seem to be withholding information or showing a bias towards non-disclosure, when in fact they may not have the tools, man-power, know-how or searchable archives to access the requested information.”
India: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is refusing to obey the orders of the chief information commissioner who has asked the government to make public the decisions of his cabinet meetings.
Nigeria: The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has sued the federal government for failing to release the names of high ranking public officials from whom public funds were recovered and the circumstances under which funds were recovered, as well as the exact amount of funds recovered from each public official,” The Premium Times reports.
European Union: An official from Slovakia, which took over the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, stressed the importance of implementing a new legal framework for transparency in intergovernmental agreements (IGAs) and of regional cooperation in gas supply security, according to Gas Daily.
United States: “Delayed, Denied, Dismissed: Failures on the FOIA Front,” an account by the public interest journalism group ProPublica of its reporters’ “most frustrating public record failures.”
United States: The Federal Bureau of Investigation issues a guide to understanding FBI records.
United States: How small towns deal with FOIA requests, an article by Craig Anderson in Delaware State News.
Open Data: The Sunlight Foundation in the United States issues “A step-by-step checklist and resource guide for creating open data policy.” Among other things, the guide says, “Open data laws provide an opportunity not just to update and improve access to information that is already open and/or public but also to specify that new data sets and records be collected and published.” It says, “Open data policies should be informed by existing provisions ensuring access to government information. Strong open data policies build upon the principles embodied by existing laws and policies that defend and establish public access, often defining standards for information quality, disclosure and publishing.”
United States: Reviewing FOIA developments, Alex Howard of The Sunlight Foundation writes, “The way forward is to use modern public records software to track inbound FOIA requests, log their origin and systematically publish frequently requested records online on an ongoing basis.”
Open Advertising: Advertisers should require their agencies to disclose “all potential conflicts of interest” and comply with thorough audits covering the agency, its parent company, affiliates and subsidiaries to ensure full transparency, according to the core recommendation made as part of a series of “Guidelines for Achieving Media Transparency,” by the Association of National Advertisers, the Media Post reports.
OGP: “How Well Did OGP Countries Implement The Commitments On Fiscal Transparency In Their First Action Plans?” writes Murray Petrie.
Filed under: What's New