Latest Features
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22 September 2003
REPORT: Freedom of Information in Ireland: Five Years On
The leading freedom of information expert in Ireland, Maeve McDonagh of University College Cork, reviews the first five years of the Irish law, passed in 1997 and implemented in 1998, and deconstructs the latest amendments, from April 2003, that roll back parts of the law. In addition to a penetrating analysis of the statute, Professor […]
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8 September 2003
The Birth of the Freedom of Information Act in Japan: Kanagawa 1982
Lawrence Repeta of the Information Clearinghouse Japan board of directors reports on the 20-year experience with freedom of information in Kanagawa prefecture — the most influential early Japanese access law, passed in 1982, two decades before the national FOI law. Download the entire report in Adobe PDF format: The Birth of the Freedom of Information […]
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17 January 2003
The Philippines: A Liberal Information Regime Even Without an Information Law
Yvonne T. Chua has been the training director of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) since 1995. As journalism trainer, she has trained scores of journalists in the Philippines and abroad, including Indonesia, Cambodia and Nepal. In 1999, she won the first prize in the Jaime V. Ongpin Awards for Investigative Journalism for her […]
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11 October 2002
Open Democracy Advice Centre Exposes Government for Failing to Implement 2-Year-Old Transparency Law
At its Second Annual Open Democracy Review in Cape Town, ODAC reported that the majority of public servants have not heard of the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2000, which came into operation in March of 2001. “We found that 54% of the public bodies we contacted were unaware of the Act, 16% were […]
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30 September 2002
Secrecy and Openness in the European Union The Ongoing Struggle for Freedom of Information By Tony Bunyan, Statewatch
Acknowledgements I would like to thank everyone in the Statewatch office (Trevor, Ben, Yasha, Katrin and Eleanor) without whom I would not have had the time to take out the cases to the European Ombudsman let alone complete this project; Steve Peers (for hours of exchanging views and experiences), Deirdre Curtin (for the stimulating sharing […]
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27 July 2002
Japan – Breaking Down the Walls of Secrecy: The Story of the Citizen’s Movement for an Information Disclosure Law
By Information Clearinghouse Japan A new national disclosure law took effect in Japan in April 2001. This essay by Information Clearinghouse Japan shows how citizen’s groups, opposition parties and freedom of information advocates had lobbied for such an act for 20 years. While local governments had passed access laws since the 1980s, efforts to enact similar […]
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17 July 2002
REPORT: A Landmark Law Opens Up Post-Apartheid South Africa
By Mukelani Dimba, Training Consultant, Open Democracy Advice Centre UPDATE – Media Release, 11 OCTOBER 2002 The Open Democracy Advice Centre (ODAC) today released the results of a study that exposes the government for failing to implement a crucial Transparency Law passed over two years ago. A Landmark Law Opens Up Post-Apartheid South Africa Throughout […]
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15 July 2002
World’s Right to Know
By Thomas Blanton Published in Foreign Policy, July/August 2002 During the last decade, 26 countries have enacted new legislation giving their citizens access to government information. Why? Because the concept of freedom of information is evolving from a moral indictment of secrecy to a tool for market regulation, more efficient government, and economic and technological […]
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9 July 2002
REPORT: In Mexico, a New Law Guarantees the Right to Know
By Kate Doyle <kadoyle@gwu.edu>, Senior Analyst and director of the Mexico Project, National Security Archive Mexico is a country where a powerful executive branch has historically overshadowed a weak Congress, a dysfunctional judicial system and a malleable press. Its citizens are unaccustomed to demanding – and receiving – their rights. For the longest time, the […]
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5 July 2002
ANALYSIS: Japanese Government Information: New Rules for Access – the 2001 Information Disclosure Law, and a Comparison with the U.S. FOIA
By Lawrence Repeta and David M. Schultz Click here to view the Information Disclosure Matrix: A Comparison of Information Disclosure in Japan and the United States INTRODUCTION After more than 20 years of lobbying by Japanese citizen’s groups, opposition political parties and others, Japan’s national Information Disclosure Law came into effect on April 1, 2001 […]