Access to Public Information

Some precedents

The right to access public information has very distant precedents. It first manifested as a freedom of the press issue in the Swedish Royal Ordinance of 1766 where access to public documents was considered. Likewise, the Universal Declaration of Man and Citizen's Rights of 1789 expressed in Article 11 that freedom of expression and opinion are the most precious rights of mankind (sic).

The first act regarding access to information was approved by the United States in 1966. This is known as the "Freedom of Information Act", whereby any governmental agency must reply to any information request about records, reports, files, etc. within a limited time. Each body must keep and index public interest information dealing with enacted or adopted provisions, publishing it quarterly. In the 70's, France, Canada and Italy issued similar acts/regulations.

Greek (1975), Portuguese (1976) and Spanish (1978) Constitutions were the first to incorporate the right to freedom of information into their texts. This right was recognized in the American Convention on Human Rights (Pacto de San Jose de Costa Rica) within Clause 3, "Freedom of thought and expression", written as: "All persons have the right to freedom of thought and expression. This right involves the freedom of searching, receiving and disseminating information and ideas of any nature..."

In the European Union, a guideline ruling access to environmental information for the group of member countries was issued in 1990. Since its enactment the member states have issued their own laws. For example, Germany has developed the Environmental Liability Law that deals with the right to access information both from the State and private organizations. There also exist specific regulations in France, Belgium and The Netherlands, among other European countries.

 

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