Transparency is essential to ensure the maintenance of democracy in a society; it’s a truth from La Palice! For nearly two years, the health decree and the wake of COVID-19 have crystallized the importance of transparency with regard to access to information by public bodies. However, this subject seems once again relegated to the Greek calendar of government priorities.
It should be remembered that access to information allows citizens in particular to form an enlightened opinion, on the basis of truthful information, whether they obtain it directly or through journalistic work. It instills in government a healthy culture of accountability to voters. What is more, in the context of adherence to health measures, we are able to observe the deleterious consequences that the erosion of the confidence of the population in the institutions.
Out-of-date regulations
It is an open secret that the current regulations governing access to information are obsolete. The transparency that is expected by the government is consequently reduced to heartache.
The obsolescence of the current process brings its share of problems and contributes to stem access to information; random responses, excessive or incomplete responses, and even simple failure to respond are common manifestations of current law enforcement. It is very difficult for organizations that have to make access requests on a regular basis, such as ours, to work with these irregularities. The solution remains: an in-depth reform of access to information. This should in particular make it possible to regularize the responses to access requests. Requests must be able to be made by legal persons. For the sake of efficiency, the notion of access to information, in addition to access to documents held by public bodies, must be added.
This bill will also have to abolish the rule which allows public bodies to have 10 additional days to respond to a request for access in certain exceptional cases, which, unfortunately, has become the norm. It must also be specified in the Law that the transmission of documents by Internet is free. Thus, public bodies should be obliged to provide documents by electronic means when possible.
Finally, public bodies should be required to produce reports each year on the number of access requests received, responses given, response times, categories of refusals, etc.
As the elections approach, we believe that the issue of access to information must be on the government’s agenda. This procrastination continues to undermine public confidence in public bodies and the state.