Special Interests Chat

Proposed Ordinance on Transparency and Free Access to Public Information

The Need for Transparency Ordinance

Transparency in governance and freedom of access to information, are the fundamentals that enable citizens to exercise social control of institutions and become partners in building the collective future.

It is no secret that our country corruption in all its forms and nuances, has become a virus that has infected nearly every area of \u200b\u200bour society. Recently, Transparency International released its 2010 report on Perceptions Index Corruption, where Venezuela reached the shameful title of being the most corrupt country in America and being the 12th most corrupt country in world, only surpassed by 11 African countries, and not coincidentally, the world's poorest.

Unfortunately, for the vast majority of Venezuelans, corruption is present in day to day, and more than a statistic in a research paper, we burst into everyday life whenever utilities suffer they serve, we see unfinished work (or poorly executed), we are a public official asks us "Collaboration" between his work, which sadly we find that, despite having great resources, they never reach to solve the most fundamental problems that impair quality of life.

And one of the main causes that promotes, facilitates and encourages corruption, is the lack of transparency in public resource management Citizen and disinformation about the details of the management of their institutions and leaders. A little self-evaluation, proposed to the readers of these lines, will locate in this context: You know you

...

... To be discussed at the City Council this week?

... how many of the projects to be executed in your parish this year is finished?

... how much public money was spent on municipal propapanga in 2009?

... as were the city's tax revenue in 2009?

or ultimately ... How much is the budget Valencia?

Unless we as a city much money you have, or how it is spent, or who or where you spend, we can hardly make a social control that enables us to ensure the proper use and allocation of public money, and thus the construction of the city that we deserve. Simón Rodríguez well said that "he who knows nothing, anyone is cheating, and who has nothing, either you buy it." Therefore, lest we be fooled by demagoguery or buy from us with false promises, it is necessary that citizens have a legal framework for exercising the right to public information and the principle of transparency.

Overall public information can be defined as all information collected, generated or funded with public money, and the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, guarantees our right to free access to it as follows:

Article 28. ° "... Everyone has the right to ... access to documents of any nature containing information of interest to communities or groups of people ..."

Free access to information provides that any citizen can know or administrative budget documents, payroll, research and development plans, contracts, minutes and minutes of meetings, resolutions, decrees, legal regulation, memory and features, procedures and formalities, and / or any other information that is of public interest.

A more transparent management as they facilitate, by all means at its disposal, the right to public information. Our Constitution is enshrined as a fundamental principle of public administration, when established:

Article 141. "The Public Administration serves the citizens and is based on the principles of honesty, participation, speed, effectiveness, efficiency, transparency , accountability and responsibility in the exercise of public functions, being fully subject to the law and the right ... "

However, these principles and rights park to materialize into reality need to create a specific legal framework to facilitate its exercise , and take advantage of new technologies of information, to place within reach of all the knowledge to enable us to social control, improving the performance of public administration and thus, our quality of life. That is the goal of this we are proposing to Valencia.


What constitutes the Ordinance on Transparency and Free Access to Public Information?

Ordinance Transparency and Free Access to Public Information given to Valencia, largely inspired by the principles-driven and the great work done by Transparencia Venezuela and book published Mercedes De Freitas (director of the organization), who have been the core promoters defense of the right to information in our country. In Venezuela, there are currently only 4 municipalities with ordinances of transparency, and this project reflects the best ideas raised in each of them, and incorporates a set with new ideas with a special emphasis on the use of technologies information.
The draft Ordinance has 7 chapters and 33 articles and fundamental aims Art.1 " establishing rules and procedures that will facilitate the exercise of the right of all citizens, access free to public that rests in all the institutions of the Bolivarian Republic of Valencia City, and has specific objectives:


"1 .- To facilitate citizen oversight of municipal governance, through advertising, ; transparency and accountability by public officials;


2 .- To enable the effective control of municipal and public resources, through the exercise of comptroller information and communication technologies.


3 .- To facilitate the effective participation of all people in decision making in the public interest;


4 .- Empowering citizens through free access to public information, promoting public participation through the democratization of knowledge of municipal administration, and thus, strengthening democracy and good governance;


5 .- Ensure the protection of personal information held by public sector . "

The draft Ordinance on Transparency and Free Access to Public Information for Valencia proposal is based on the following principles:

To realize these principles, the Ordinance provides inter alia the following:

• Data protection: The possibility of declaring public information as confidential, in cases where informació n put at risk the safety of municipality or persons, for which they must declare it by an administrative act, which will register at a rate of classified information, being the public record (Articles 9, 10 and 19).

• The mandatory Response: All officials will be obliged to receive and give explicit timely and proper response to any soliciltud information " either via fax, telephone, electronic, written or oral "(Article 16).

• La verificación personal de la información: Todo ciudadano tendrá el derecho, previa solicitud formal, de verificar personalmente los originales de las fuentes que sustente la información pública solicitada (Artículo 17).

• La justificación de la inexistencia o denegación de información: Toda denegación a las solicitudes de información deberá ser justificado por escrito, expressing to seek the reasons why such information is lacking or is classified information (Article 19).

• The management and control of requests for information: includes the establishment of an official (not the hiring of a new one, but one already nomic) in each agency or body under the purview of the ordinance will be responsible for monitoring and responding to requests for information made under the scope of the powers of his institution. It also plans to create a public index of requests for information containing all requests, responses and resolutions associated with each request for information (Articles 20, 21 and 22).

(If you want to continue reading the proposal, click on "Read More")

Among the most important aspects considered included in the ordinance, is the obligation of all the institutions of municipal government of Valencia, publish and update whenever, in its corporate website a standard core set of public information concerning the institution (Article 24 ) you can always be available, updated, without intermediaries, without applications and free on the Internet to be constantly available to everyone (with similarities to this example Municipality of Concepcion, Chile). Among them are:
1 The reason for the institution and the activities and functions performed.

2 The legal basis that governs the regulations and applicable internal procedures.

3 º projects regulations that are in the process of dispatch.

4 The administrative structure of the entity or body, including all instances and positions within it.

5 The list of officials occupying each of the charges and the responsibilities and powers of each officer according to the position held.

6 º services offered and how to access them, in a simple and accessible as well as opening hours, their procedures and formalities, including those making complaints, queries or complaints about the service or the performance of the duties or powers by the person concerned, and other information necessary to enable all people to exercise their rights and fulfilling their obligations .

7 The forms or formats of applications that are required for procedures associated with their field of action and procedures for complaints about violations of the right of access to public information in the form simple and accessible.

8 ° Information on the annual budget administered by the agency or body and the projected budget for next fiscal year.

9 º Information on the implementation of the annual budget with signs recipients of the delivery of public resources and the purpose and use have given and done them.

10 º Memory and has the ultimate authority or institution for the previous year and other accountability mechanisms accounts, such as management reports and performance indicators.

11 th annual goals and objectives in accordance with their operational programs and the degree of compliance of these goals and objectives.

12 º Plans and running programs, and future.

13 º mechanisms of interaction, consultation and participation of all people in the management of the agency or body.

14 º The name, office address, telephone number and email address the official, agency or body to process and respond to requests for access to information in the relevant agency or body.

Additionally, because of its enormous importance in the fate of the city and its eminently public, it provides a set of basic information requirements that the City Council shall keep updating constatnte institutional website ( Article 25 ), which are:

1 º Post digital version of the Official Gazette of the Bolivarian Republic of Valencia City simultaneously publication in physical format.

2 º Post well in advance the respective agenda before each meeting of City Council.

3 º Publish respective minutes after each session of the City Council within a maximum of 5 working days after the meeting.

4 º Keep a digital archive of all the Official Gazettes, published agendas and minutes from the entry into force of this ordinance.

5 th transmit video on the Internet for live sessions of the City Council.

the 5th Numeral attach particular importance for the special feasibility of streaming video on the Internet given current technologies at a cost of investment and operating almost free, and especially for allowing the possibility that Valencia to attend virtually all the most important forum for discussion of public affairs of his city, was able to verify the spitting image and voice, as we represent our council.

We are fortunate to live in a wonderful time where advances in knowledge and technology allow us to realize things were a few years ago seemed impossible or impractical. Today information technologies can be placed within reach of all a wealth of information and knowledge in the Information Society and Knowledge which we live is the main source of empowerment. I have no doubt that the adoption and implementation of this draft ordinance driven by popular initiative in Valencia (as stipulated in Article 224 of LOPPM), will bring countless benefits to all levels, and perhaps most important, strengthening democracy through participation Particitiva citizens in building the best possible future for our city.

Edison Durán Lucena

PS: If you want to join the full text of this draft Ordenza and participate with your ideas and proposals for public consultation click here.

(click on the read more to continue reading this article)

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The jury, is an attempt to make the city part of the legal, and thus permissible under the present democratic conditions in other public bodies. is a step towards full judicial independence.

If you try from a purely political angle, may not have debated the figure of the jury is at root a political decision, the constitution clearly supports article 125, though, it could be discussed if it involves the stimulation of justice, since it does not seem politicization more natural state of it. His detractors argue that it is an expensive process that does not correspond to its effectiveness.


However, treated from an ethical perspective, doubts and contradictions loom even unintentionally. The thought of having to judge another human being, I am overwhelmed. Needless to say, I do not feel qualified to evaluate about events outside the aesthetic content, sentimental, social and even poetic, that the person responsible for them can get to transmit ...


In law, consistent distance between the accused and their judges, should be not only a legal obligation but also an objective necessity. Suddenly the allegorical image of blindfolded justice, seems to be long gone. Now justice has eyes, eighteen to be exact, nine hearts with different beats, nine lives with different experiences, with different concerns, different views, faiths and realities ... nine beings human, full of frustration, sorrow, grief, joy, and dreams. Nine citizens who have, nevertheless, to agree. Do they know their eyes, to judge the scope of all these elements adjacent?


Would you know, I stay out of my mind, my unyielding idea that man is good by nature? To what extent the facts before an image can fade this, crying or not, with their own life? How the words of a prosecutor or defense counsel, could distract from these facts, and make me see what the facts show? Would you say that the truth this just in the facts?


Thanks to the jury, referred to mitigating the law or even emerging. Are reasons and "whys" that justice not even looking. But are these findings accurate?


In the brief experience with juries in our country, the results are somewhat disappointing, in many cases, it actually has a legal response diametrically opposed on the basis that the cause of failure a court of law or the Court of the Jury, which I find somewhat disturbing.

Cases like Laffage Nagore, in which a people's court declares the murderer Yllanes, author of a homicide and not murder as requested by the family and the prosecutor, varying greatly Codena, or Jacobo Pineiro accused and acquitted by a jury of 57 tips causing the stabbing deaths of two gay or Dolores Vázquez, a jury convicted and later acquitted by the High Court, ruling after the Supreme ratify, or next, the Pilar Marcos, acquitted by a people's court of homicide charges against the figure of her husband of 77 years are clearly outrageous verdicts, not by the human background dragging and surely the law must take into account, but the reality behind them. Wrongful acts undertaken not by an organism that can be investigated, refuted and limited in its powers, but by a group of citizens who most believe in the facts, believe in feelings, not bad, but, as we see, not always fair.


I like the idea of \u200b\u200bbeing able to see beyond the facts, but I am afraid that what you see is not right. As in all fields leads us to the professionalism and preparation, the jury, layman, is responsible for giving a heart the law and to godly justice, but the law is a simple tool, and justice, human aspiration.


The Cesar feel comfortable, I feel it is necessary to maintain the balance between good and evil, and desperately seeking commissioners to do so.


AMG