All
persons have the right: […] To solicit information
that one needs without disclosing the reason, and to receive
that information from any public entity within the period
specified by law, at a reasonable cost. Information that
affects personal intimacy and that is expressly excluded
by law or for reasons of national security is not subject
to disclosure.(1)
•
Undernourished people (% of total population),
2000/03: 13
•
Population with sustainable access to an improved
water source (%), 2002: 81
Source:
UN Development Program, Human Development Reports
Data
Access
to information is constitutionally protected under the right
of habeas data. Several cases have allowed the courts to
establish their jurisdiction over, and support for, habeas
data.(2)
The
Law
of Transparency and Access to Public Information was
adopted in August 2002 and went into effect in January 2003.(3)
Under the law, every individual has the right to request
information in any form from any government body or private
entity that offers public services or executes administrative
functions without having to explain why. Documentation funded
by the public budget is considered public information. Public
bodies must respond within seven working days which can
be extended in extraordinary cases for another five days.
The
Parliament substantially amended the law in January 2003
following criticism of the excessive exemptions, especially
relating to national security, and a law suit filed by the
Ombudsman in the Constitutional Tribunal challenging the
constitutionality of the Act.
There
are three tiers of exemptions: For national security information
the disclosure of which would cause a threat to the territorial
integrity and/or survival of the democratic systems and
the intelligence or counterintelligence activities of the
CNI; reserved information relating to crime and external
relations; and confidential information relating to pre-decisional
advice, commercial secrets, ongoing investigations and personal
privacy. Information relating to violations of human rights
or the Geneva Conventions of 1949 cannot be classified.
The exempted information can be obtained by the courts,
Congress, the General Comptroller, and the Human Rights
Ombudsman in some cases.
Appeals
can be made to a higher department. Once appeals are completed,
the requestor can appeal administratively to the court under
Law N° 27444 or under Law N° 26301 for the constitutional
right of habeas data.(4) As of 2005, there
had been 25 petitions before the Constitutional Court under
habeas data.(5) In 2003, The Constitutional
Court ordered the release under habeas data of all the expenses
of the ex-president of Peru, Mr. Alberto Fujimori in his
travels abroad.(6)
The
Ombudsman
can also investigate non-compliance and issue non-binding
opinions.(7) The Ombudsman is also conducting
training and promoting the Act. Prior to the Act, the office
handled many cases informally on access to personal records.
The
law also requires government departments to create web sites
and publish information on their organization, activities,
regulations, budget, salaries, costs of the acquisition
of goods and services, and official activities of high-ranking
officials. Detailed information on public finances is also
required to be published every four months on the Ministry
of Economic and Finance's web site.
There
were nearly 40,000 requests in the first year.(8)
However, a review by the Instituto de Prensa y Sociedad
(IPYS) found that many of the requests were not requests
for information but requests for certificates and licenses,
proposals, invitations and congratulatory messages. A monitoring
project by IPYS found that only 17 percent of requests were
fully responded to, 32 percent of requests were not answered
at all and 68 percent of the requests answered were not
done within the timeframes.(9) The Access
Initiative - Peru review of access to environmental information
found numerous problems including a continued culture of
secrecy, low awareness of the law, a lack of systemized
information, and lack of reliable information.(10)
A
new law on Intelligence services was approved by the Parliament
in June 2005. It creates new categories of classified information
and allows for greater withholding on information by intelligence
services.(11) The Criminal Code prohibits
the disclosure of state secrets.(12)
The
government has committed to creating a special commission
to develop a data protection act but it has not advanced.(13)
9
JANUARY 2003 PERU:
Revision of FOI Law The
Permanent Commission of the Peruvian Congress approved revisions
to the Law of Transparency and Access to Public Information,
which had been originally promulgated by President Alejandro
Toledo in August 2002. This revised version of the law incorporates
some recommendations made by organizations like the Peruvian Press Council and the Human Rights Ombudsman. Kela León, of the Peruvian
Press Council, has characterized the changes as, “an important
step in favor of transparency and the principle of public
accounting,” and notes that the revised law accepts many
of the Press Council’s suggestions on the criteria for national
security exemptions, found in their “Principles of Lima”
declaration. The a copy of the bill can be found here.
August
8, 2002 Peru's
New Freedom of Information Law
On August 2, 2002 Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo formally
promulgated the Law of Transparency and Access to Public
Information, which was then published on August 3, 2002
in the official government daily El Peruano. While this
law represents a major advance for the right to information,
according to the Peruvian Press Council who spearheaded
the campaign for freedom of information in Peru, the law
has a number of defects that may pose problems in the future.
[Read
More]
2.
See Javier Casas, A Legal Framework for Access to Information
in Peru, in Article 19, Time for Change: Promoting and Protecting
Access to Information and Reproductive and Sexual Health
Rights in Peru, January 2006. See list available at http://www.cajpe.org.pe/RIJ/bases/juris-nac/aip.htm
Accountability
and Public Voice: 4.65
Civil Liberties: 4.64
Rule of Law: 3.84
Anticorruption and Transparency: 3.21
"The
1993 constitution set out extensive freedom of
information rights, and in August 2002 the Law
on Transparency and Access to Public Information
went into effect, giving every individual the
right to request information in any form from
any government body or private entity that offers
public services or executes administrative functions
without having to explain why. The law establishes
procedures for disciplining government employees
who do not release public information, although
there are not yet any known cases of any public
official being sanctioned. The government has
had difficulty in implementation because of the
complexity of the system and the cost of monitoring,
particularly at the regional and local levels.
The
law requires government departments to establish
Web sites and to regularly publish information
on their activities, budget, costs of the acquisition
of goods and services, official activities of
high-ranking officials, regulations, and salaries.
Detailed public finance information must be
published on the Web site of the ministry of
economics and finance every four months. In
practice, however, compliance with these requirements
varies according to agency, and the effectiveness
of the measure is often determined by the amount
of public and media interest in the particular
information."
"Pursuant
to the Transparency and Access to Public Information
Law, most Ministries and central offices provided
key information on their web pages, and, in some
offices, information requests were expedited.
However, implementation of the law was incomplete,
particularly in rural areas. In addition, there
was a widespread lack of awareness of the law,
and relatively few citizens understood and exercised
their right to information. The Ombudsman's office
made efforts to promote citizen awareness of transparency
rights and to encourage regional governments to
adopt transparency practices. In July, the Ombudsman's
office issued its annual report that ranked regional
governments in terms of transparency, citizen
access to information, clear financial accounting,
and ability to work with different social actors."
1)
Voice and Accountability: -0.04
2) Political Instability and Violence: -0.68
3) Government Effectiveness: -0.58
4) Regulatory Burden: 0.17
5) Rule of Law: -0.63
6) Control of Corruption: -0.35
