Latest Features
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16 January 2014
Toward a New Culture of Information in Kurdistan
By Hiwa Osman Osman’s column appeared Jan. 14 in Rudaw. Osman is an Iraqi Kurdish journalist and columnist for Rudaw and runs the blog Thoughts from Iraq. While many of us are busy with the case of the murdered fellow journalist, Kawa Garmiyani, we are overlooking something as important as that case: The right of […]
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16 January 2014
2013: Information Freedom and Open Government
By Asya Suvorova This retrospective article appeared first in Russian on the website of the Freedom of Information Foundation, based in St. Petersburg, Russia. It is also here in English. It was translated by Inna Kremen. Everything seems to have mixed up in the world: in European countries with advanced democratic customs, citizens regularly met difficulties […]
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18 December 2013
The challenges to the Uruguayan FOI Act
By Mariana Mas Mas works for the Uruguayan group DATA. This year the Uruguayan FOI act was reformed, but the path to the reform wasn’t an easy road, it meant different struggles between the Senators, the organized civil society (OSC) and the official body in charge on the control of FOI. In August of […]
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2 December 2013
Peru’s New Cybercrime Law Undermines Transparency Legislation
By Milagros Salazar This article was first published by Inter Press Service (Spanish version). LIMA, Nov 27 2013 (IPS) – A new law against cybercrime that restricts the use of data and freedom of information in Peru clashes with earlier legislation, on transparency, which represented a major stride forward in citizen rights. The advances made […]
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29 November 2013
Irish FOI bill concerns must be tackled
By Maeve McDonagh McDonagh is Professor of Law at UCC. She is also the author of Freedom of Information Law 2nd ed This article was originally published Nov. 25 in the Irish Examiner. The Freedom of Information Bill 2013 currently at committee stage in the Oireachtas is to be welcomed in terms of its reversal […]
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26 November 2013
RTI: The Promise and the Problems
By Yek Raj Pathak The author is senior editor at National News Agency. This article was first published in Republica. Right to Information Sangam Biswakarma of Hetauda got just 42 marks in mathematics in his SLC exams. He was not satisfied. He was confident that he should get at least 90 in this paper. His […]
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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
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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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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24 October 2013
The Nigerian National Assembly Needs to Follow FOI Law
By Yemi Ademolekun Adamolekun is the National Coordinator of Enough is Enough Nigeria. This article was first published Oct. 24 in Punch. The National Assembly was allocated N150bn ($1 bn) in the 2013 budget. Yes, it’s ONLY three per cent of the total budget of N4.987tn. However, the 469 men and women in the National […]
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16 October 2013
Talking About a (Data) Revolution
By Dave Banisar Banisar is Senior Legal Counsel of Article 19. The following article was posted Oct. 16, 2013, on the Article 19 website. At the end of this month, over 50 nations will converge on London for the annual summit of the Open Government Partnership (OGP). The OGP has seen rapid growth since its […]
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14 October 2013
Pace of Handling Zambian ATI Legislation Defended
By Emmanuel Nyirenda Nyirenda is former managing director of the Times of Zambia and Zambia Daily Mail. He also served as permanent secretary at the Ministry of information. This article was published in the Zambia Daily Mail and is reprinted with permission. The introduction of an access to information law in Zambia has been congroversially […]
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7 October 2013
Abe Promotes Secrecy, Sidelining Transparency and OGP
By Jeff Kingston Kingston is Director of Asian Studies, Temple University Japan. Norika Fujiwara, a TV celebrity who serves as goodwill Ambassador for the Japanese Red Cross, recently caused a media sensation when she came out against the government’s proposed secrecy legislation, saying it would adversely affect citizens. Writing on her website last month, she urged […]
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7 October 2013
Some Ukrainian Bodies Deny Asset Disclosures
By Oleksii Khmara and Anatolii Stoian Khmara is head of Transparency International Ukraine, an anti-corruption watchdog. Stoian is a representative of the same organization. Just in time for the eleventh annual International Right to Know Day on September 28th, Ukrainian parliament members have again attempted to significantly limit the public’s access to information. Four representatives of the […]
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2 October 2013
EU Transparency: Where are we now?
By P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, European Ombudsman The following speech was given by Diamandouros., the outgoing Euopean Ombudsman, at a seminar on Sept. 28, 2013, in Brussels. Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to this seminar on the occasion of the “International Right to Know Day”. It is the fourth time that the European Ombudsman organises such an event, […]
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27 August 2013
The Nigerian FOIA Picks a Useful Compass in the U.S. FOIA
By Oluwasegun Obebe Obebe is the Records, Information & Privacy Officer with the Washington, D.C., Department of Corrections. Nigeria surely has a tempestuous post colonial history, and has garnered unenviable international notoriety as a corrupt country of swindlers and “419” scam artists. But the nation has also clearly shown an irrepressible drive toward a transparent and […]
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9 August 2013
Tackling Thorny Issues of Open Government at the OGP London Summit
This post was originally published Aug. 9 on the Open Government Partnership UK website, created by nongovernmental organizations and hosted by Open Rights Group, The Open Government Partnership summit in London is gaining momentum, as evidenced by the growing engagement from civil society organisations. The OGP is reaching an important milestone, with the closure of […]
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5 August 2013
Bangladesh should further proactive disclosures
By Suchismita Goswami The writer is Project Officer, Access to Information Programme, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. This article was published July 29 in The Daily Star. Bangladesh enacted its Right to Information Act in 2009. However more than three years following its enactment, very little is known about what the law means and what it […]