RunningWithBulls.com - The curse of Sanfermin

PI Releases Freedom of Information Around the World 2006 Report

[UPDATE:] A very useful graphic on the breakdown of countries.

Privacy International have released their 2006 world report on Freedom Of Information survey on access to government information laws. The report provides a review of FOI laws practices and policies from 70 countries worldwide.

As to be expected, Ireland comes top of the class of “poorly drafted laws, lax implementation and an ongoing culture of secrecy, and dangers in backsliding”. They say:

“Unfortunately, the survey also highlights that many problems still exist such as poorly drafted laws, lax implementation and an ongoing culture of secrecy in many countries. There are also dangers in backsliding such as in Ireland where the imposition of onerous fees has significantly reduced use of the law and in the United Kingdom where a similar proposal is being considered. New laws promoting secrecy in the global war on terror have also undercut access.”

Great. Other countries are held high in public light for doing good, while we are shown up as how not to do it.

The full text of their report on Ireland (page 87 of full report-available for PDF download here.) is excerpted below:

IRELAND

The Freedom of Information Act was approved in 1997 and went into effect in April 1998. (For a
comprehensive overview, see McDonagh, Freedom of Information in Ireland (Sweet and Marwell, 1998), and McDonagh, “Freedom of
Information in Ireland: Five Years On,� (22 September 2003)).
The Act creates a broad presumption that the public can access all information held by government bodies describing itself in the title as “An act to enable members of the public to obtain access, to the greatest extent possible consistent with the public interest and the right to privacy, to information in the possession of public bodies and to enable persons to have personal information relating to them in the possession of such bodies corrected and, accordingly, to provide for a right of access to records held
by such bodies.�

Under the Act, any person can request any record held by a public body. The Act lists the government departments and bodies it covers. The Minister of Finance can by regulation add more bodies and has been slowly expanding the scope of the legislation to new organizations, now numbering almost 500. The Act does not apply to the Garda Síochána (police) and a number of other bodies including the Health and Safety Authority (secretly introduced as an amendment in 2005), the Central Bank, Financial Services Authority, Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority, and National Treasury Management Agency. Government bodies must respond within four weeks and justify why information is withheld. It also requires that agencies provide a written explanation to individuals of decisions that affect their interests.

The Act only applies to documents created after April 1998, unless they contain personal information or are necessary to understand other documents covered under the Act. There are a number of exemptions and exclusions with different harm and public-interest tests.
Records can be withheld if they relate to: the deliberative process unless the public interest is better served by releasing the document; cases where the release of information would prejudice the effectiveness of investigations or audits or the performance of government functions and negotiations unless the public interest is better served by releasing the documents; or cases where disclosure would prejudice law enforcement, security, defense and international affairs. Documents must be withheld where they relate to ministerial Cabinet meetings with an exception for certain records related to a decision made over ten years before the request or those that contain factual information relating to a
decision of the government; contempt of court and parliamentary proceedings; legal professional privilege; information obtained in confidence; commercially sensitive information and personal information, or where (with certain exceptions) disclosure is prohibited or authorized by other
legislation.

There is a public-interest test for records obtained in confidence or those containing personal or commercially sensitive information. But the public-interest argument cannot be made for records related to defense or international relations. There is a limited public interest argument for lawenforcement records.

There is a right of internal appeal. There is also a right of external appeal to the Office of the Information Commissioner who also oversees and enforces the Act. Decisions of the Commissioner Freedom of Information Act, 1997, are binding and can be appealed only on a point of law. In 2005 the Commissioner, who is also the Ombudsman, received 360 appeals (2 percent of requests, down from 6 percent in 2003) and agreed to hear 285 of them (down from 333 in 2004).

The Commissioner reviewed 447 cases and issued 272 formal decisions, affirming the decision of the government body in 75 percent of the cases, varied the decision in 18 percent and annulled it in 6.6 percent. Another 44 cases (10 percent of cases) were settled.

There have been over a dozen decisions by the High Court and two decisions by the Supreme Court (For copies of decisions). The Minister of Justice issued no new certificates in 2003 or 2004 to prevent release of sensitive information.

Public bodies are required to publish information relating to their structure, functions, duties, descriptions of records, and the internal rules, procedures, practices, guidelines, and interpretations of the agency.
Inside the government, the FOI Central Policy Unit (CPU) in the Department of Finance coordinates the Act. The CPU chairs several working and advisory groups and promotes and trains staff on the Act. It also recommends which government bodies the Act ought to cover in the future.
The Freedom of Information (Amendment) Act was adopted in April 2003 (Freedom of Information (Amendment) Act 2003, Number 9 of 2003). The amendment extended the time for withholding of Cabinet Documents from five years to ten years and expanded the coverage of the exemption; allowed public servants to issue unappealable certificates saying that deliberative processes are ongoing to prevent access and weakened the public interest test; weakened the harm test for security, defence and international relations; and allowed the government to impose fees for requests and appeals. The government announced in June 2003 that it was imposing a new fee structure based in the amendment - €15 for requests, €75 for internal reviews and €150 for reviews to the Information Commissioner.

There were 14,616 requests in 2005, up 14 percent from 2004, but still lower than the 18,400 requests made in 2003 before the amendments (Office of the Information Commissioner, Annual Report 2005. See also Seventh Report by the Minister for Finance on Freedom of
Information, January - December 2004, August 2005).
43 percent of all requests were granted in full, 26 percent in part and 15 percent were denied in full. Four percent were subject to an internal review. 76 percent of all requests were from individuals asking for their personal information and 6.5 percent were from
journalists (down from 20 percent in 2001). 13 percent requests were dealt with outside of FOI. From 1998 though 2003, bodies received over 93,000 requests.
The Information Commissioner issued a report in June 2004 finding that since the introduction of fees the overall usage of the Act declined over 50 percent and requests for non-personal information declined by 75 percent (Office of the Information Commission, Review of the Operation of the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Act 2003, June 2004). The review also found that journalists (down 83 percent) and businesses (down 53 percent) were substantially less likely to use the Act. The Council of Europe GRECO committee was critical of the changes and recommended changes in its 2005 review of corruption efforts in Ireland:
[T]he described rules could prevent the public from requesting information and/or appealing a decision not to give out information. Above all, the fee system […] sends a negative signal to the public, which is to some extent in contradiction with the general principles of the right to access to official information, as provided for in the Freedom of Information Act. The GET therefore recommends to reconsider the system of fees for requests for access to official information according to the Freedom of Information Act as well as with regard to the available review and appeal procedures in this respect (GRECO, Second Evaluation Round - Evaluation Report on Ireland, December 2005).

Many government departments have begun to publish details on their web sites of all requests and responses which was criticized by the media as an effort to stop the use of FOI for investigative reporting. The Department of Communications also began to publish the name and address of every requestor on its web site. The Data Protection Commissioner ruled in 2003 that bodies could publish the names of FOI requestors who were acting in their professional capacity as journalists or as employees of a company but not the names of individuals asking for their own records or those whose professions could not be determined (Ireland Data Protection Commissioner, Appendix 2, Annual Report 2003).
Under the National Archives Act, records that are over 30 years old must be transferred to the National Archives and be made available to the public (National Archives Act 1986). There is an “access gap� between 1998 when the FOI went into effect and those documents covered under the Archives Act (See McDonagh, Freedom of Information in Ireland (Sweet and Marwell, 1998), chapter 20).
Some major bodies such as the Department of Health have been failing to transfer their records long after legally
required (12-year gap in Department records, IrishHealth.com, 4 January 2006). The Official Secrets Act 1963, which is based on the UK Official Secrets Act 1911, remains in force and criminalizes the unauthorized release of information (Official Secrets Act, 1963). Minister for Justice Michael McDowell was criticized in December 2005 for leaking information from Garda intelligence files about the director of the Centre for Public Inquiry to a funder and a newspaper.
Ireland signed the Aarhus Convention in June 1998 but has not ratified it. The Access to Information on the Environment Regulations, 1998 implement the 1992 EU Directive on access to environmental information (European Communities Act, 1972 (Access to Information on the Environment) Regulations 1998. S.I. No 125/1998).
Ireland was required to implement the EU Directive 2003/4/EC by 15 February 2005 but as of March 2006 had not done so.

A Statutory Instrument was adopted in June 2005 to implement the EU Directive on the re-use and commercial exploitation of public sector information (2003/98/EC) (Statutory Instrument S.I. No. 279 of 2005, European Communities (Re-Use of Public Sector Information) Regulations 2005).
Individuals can obtain records containing personal information about themselves held by public and private bodies under the Data Protection Act 1988 which was updated in 2003 by the Data Protection (Amendment) Act to extend to manual files (Compendium of both Data Protection Acts).

It is overseen by the Data Protection Commissioner.

So, all in all, it makes for sad reading.

Lots of semi-legal text in there so, hoipefully we will have a repsonse from DRI soon.

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