What’s New
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9 April 2015
Design of WJP Open Gov Index Skews Results
By Helen Darbishire The author is the Director of AccessInfo Europe. From a right of access to information perspective, a significant structural flaw in the World Justice Project Open Government Index is to have conflated this right with access to personal data, and other types of “information requests” such as obtaining information for local business […]
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9 April 2015
WJP Open Government Index Raises Interesting Questions
By Ben Worthy The author is Lecturer in Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London, and the author of the OpenDataStudy blog. In March 2015 the World Justice Project published its analysis of government openness in 102 countries, as measured by its Open Government Index. You can read the report here and browse the data and […]
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9 April 2015
FOI Notes: Olympics, India, US, Drones, Open Data, More
Sports: The International Olympic Committee announces plans to disclose the compensation of its top officials. India: The Department of Personnel and Training has invited views/suggestions from citizens on the draft guidelines regarding elements that a RTI reply should essentially contain, RTI India reports. United States: “The expanding reach of the Freedom of Information Act has […]
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8 April 2015
Judge Orders Nigerian Parliament to Report Constituency Payments
A Nigerian Federal High Court judge has ordered the National Assembly to disclose details of budgetary allocations made to individual legislators for physical projects and the details of the progress of the projects. Justice Abdu Kafarati issued the ruling in response to a of Information suit filed by the a nongovernmental organization, the Legal Defence and Assistance Project (LEDAP). The […]
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8 April 2015
US DOJ Preparing Toolkit About Body Cameras
The Justice Department hopes to produce by late May a “toolkit” to help jurisdictions make decisions about adopting the use of body cameras, according to a DOJ spokesperson and a consultation on the project. President Obama’s Task Force on 21st-Century Policing earlier this year issued a report that includes pro-transparency recommendations, and proposed creation of […]
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2 April 2015
UN Goal on RTI Secure, Focus Now on Measurement
By Toby McIntosh Inclusion of a provision on access to information in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals is now considered likely and attention is focusing on how to measure progress toward achieving the goal. Supporters of Goal 16.10 are optimistic that it will be included in the final document, scheduled for adoption by the […]
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2 April 2015
TI Rates UK Openness; Plans Reports on More Countries
A new rating of open government in the United Kingdom is the vanguard of a much larger evaluative project planned by Transparency International. The Berlin-based nongovernmental organization already has applied the new methodology to Ghana, Indonesia, Peru and Ukraine, with results to be released soon. Plans for much wider use of the tool are in […]
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2 April 2015
Tanzania Delays Action on FOI Bill, at Media Urging
Tanzanian officials have decided not to table a freedom of information bill with a “certificate of urgency,” again delaying action on a measure promised by the president more than a year ago. The handling of the bill, and recent passage of another bill criticized for restricting public speech, comes as the government is about to […]
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2 April 2015
Draft Issued For Latin American Environmental ATI
Environmental activists say they are pleased with the preliminary document of the regional agreement for Latin America and the Caribbean on the rights of access to information, participation and justice in environmental matters. Negotiations in May will continue work on the agreement which would be the first regional convention on such rights in the developing world. […]
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2 April 2015
FOI Notes: UK, Civic Space, History, US, UNESCO, Transparency Research
United Kingdom: The Information Commissioner issues a document looking at “the question of how to achieve greater transparency about services and functions outsourced by public authorities, and the role that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) plays in this. We highlight the uncertainty about what information is in scope of FOIA and explain how we […]
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2 April 2015
Slower Growth Rate Seen in Indian RTI Requests
The rate of growth in the number of Right to Information Act requests filed in India is slowing, according to the preliminary findings by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI). “So the question to ask is whether RTI fatigue is setting in or will the numbers go up considerably if all public authorities were to report their […]
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1 April 2015
Canadian Commissioner Makes 85 Reform Proposals
The Canadian Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault has made 85 recommendations to bring the Access to Information Act up to international standards. Her report, Striking the Right Balance for Transparency: Recommendations to Modernize the Access to Information Act, was sent to Parliament, but observers were doubtful of the chances of passage with the current conservative government. Legault […]
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26 March 2015
UK Court Blunts Government Veto of Releasing Royal Mail
A British journalist has won a case to get access to letters sent by Prince Charles to government agencies, a decision has ignited debate about when the government should be able to “veto” disclosures under the Freedom of Information Act. The Supreme Court ruling prompted Prime Minister David Cameron to issue a statement saying that the law […]
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26 March 2015
Obama Task Force Suggests Study of Body Cam Policies
President Obama’s Task Force on 21st-Century Policing has issued a report that includes pro-transparency recommendations, and recommends creation of “best practices” for states on topics including the disclosure of video taken from cameras worn by police officers. Obama appointed the task force after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the fatal […]
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26 March 2015
FOI Notes: Africa, UK, Ireland, US, Brazil, Nepal, India, New Zealand
Africa: Gilbert Sendugwa, Coordinator and Head of the Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC), a pan-African network of 35 organizations based in Uganda, is featured in an IFEX podcast (text also available there) along with links to resources about FOI in Africa. Last September, AFIC released a report called The State of Right to Information […]
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26 March 2015
US Group Creates Ratings on Open Government, RTI
The World Justice Project has created an “Open Government Index” that rates 102 countries in four categories, including right to information. “Instead of measuring what the law says, we measure how these laws are experienced by ordinary people interacting with their governments around the world,” according to the report issued March 26 by the Washington-based […]
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25 March 2015
Indian Group Criticizes CIC Selection Process
The National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) has complained about delays in the selection of a new chief information commissioner and the secrecy of the process. The post has been vacant for seven months since Aug. 22, 2014. Activists Aruna Roy, Anjali Bhardwaj, Nikhil Dey and the Former CIC Wajahat Habibullah addressed a […]
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25 March 2015
RTI Law in Indian State Not Implemented, Critics Say
The six-year old right to information law in the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir is not being fully implemented, according to reports on the anniversary of the law. “Six years since the landmark legislation Right to Information Act was implemented in the state, the government itself has failed to adhere to the guidelines of […]
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25 March 2015
Ukraine Advances Bill to Post More Information Online
The Ukrainian Parliament March 5 gave preliminary approval (with 243 votes) to a law that would make more public information available online and free of charge, according to an article by Boxhena Sheremeta in the Kiev Post. Government agencies would have to publish operational data, statistics and reports on a national open data web platform. […]
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25 March 2015
Bulgarian Group Proposes Ideas on Rewriting RTI Law
A new report by the Access to Information Programme (AIP) in Bulgaria proposes ways to handle five major implementation problems. Based on its “18 years of experience in the monitoring and advocacy for enhanced transparency and accountability of public bodies and more active exercise of the right to information,” AIP formulated recommendations for necessary legislative […]