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President Jimmy Carter and 125 access to information specialists from around the world call for strong Convention that fully recognises the Right of Access to Information
Atlanta/Strasbourg, 25 March 2008: Former United States President Jimmy Carter today wrote to Council of Europe Secretary Genear Mr Terry Davis to present a call from 125 members of the global access to information community from 40 countries that the future Convention on Access to Official Documents enshrine a full right of access to information.
The "Atlanta Declaration and Plan of Action", the product of over three days of debate at the Carter Center in Atlanta on 26-29 February 2008 by the largest ever international civil society gathering on access to information, establishes a series of principles on the right of access to information, including:
"The right of access to information should apply to all branches of government (including the executive, judicial and legislative bodies, as well as autonomous organs) at all levels (federal, central, regional and local) and to all divisions of the international bodies listed above"
The Action Plan at point 2 specifically addresses the Council of Europe Convention drafting process:
As the first intergovernmental institution to formulate a specific convention on the right of access to information, the member states of the Council of Europe should ensure that the above findings and principles are respected in the future “European Convention on Access to Official Documents.”
Access Info will present the Atanta Declaraton at a meeting of the Council of Europe on 26th March 2008.
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Eight Information Commissioners call for stronger Convention on Access to Documents
Strasbourg, 25 March 2008: Information Commissioners from eight (8) countries today wrote to the Council of Europe urging amendments to the draft Convention on Access to Official Documents.
Information Commissioners from Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, and Switzerland, emphasised the need to ensure that the right applies to all branches of government, that there should be time-frames for answering request, that there should be binding appeals mechanisms, and that there should be a clear requirement for proactive publication of core documents.
In addition, they have called for reservations to be prohibited for some of the key articles of the Convention.
See the Information Commissioners' letter here
Convention Campaign News:
Renewed calls for Council of Europe to strengthen draft Convention -- key meeting in Strasbourg on 26th March
In advance of a key meeting on 26th March, civil society, information commissioners and other experts have renewed calls for the Council of Europe to ensure to strengthen the draft European Convention on Access to Official Documents.
The message from all these specialists is that the Council of Europe's Steering Committee on Human Rights (CDDH) should seize the opportunity of a meeting in Strasbourg this week to strengthen the draft and bring it into line with established standards for the right of access to information.
The groups note that the current treaty fails to recognise the right of access to information in key respects, including by only applying to a part of government (administrative bodies) and by not guaranteeing the right of appeal to a body that can issue binding decisions.
For more details on what has been called for previously, please see the following documents:
Civil society - letter by 250 NGOs and 270 individuals
Submission from OSCE
News:
Council Of Europe Convention on Access to Documents: Seven Key Problems Remain in the Draft Convention
After the final drafting session of the Group of Specialists in Strasbourg (12-15 February 2008), the current version of the draft European Convention on Access to Official Documents, when read together with the text of its Explanatory Memorandum, continues to have serious problems and fails to guarantee a full right of access to information in seven principal ways.
The outstanding probems include:
• exclusion of legislative and judicial bodies;
• absence of a guarantee that requestors will have access to an appeals body with the power to order public authorities to disclose official documents;
• absence of a requirement that states set statutory maximum time-limits;
• failure to define which provisions of the Convention may or may not be subject to reservations.
Access Info Europe together with Article 19 and the Open Society Justice Initiative call on the CDDH, which will consider the draft text of the Convention and the Explanatory Memorandum on 26th March, to take these concerns into consideration and to reform the treaty accordingly to ensure that it provides genuine guarantees for the right of access to information
Read the full press release here
Read the civil society drafting solutions here
See the draft Covention and Explanatory Memorandum here
Convention Campaign News:
Council of Europe media freedom body calls for full recognition of right to information in future Convention:
The Council of Europe body that monitors developments related to media freedom, the Steering Committee on Media and New Communication Services (CDMC) has expressed its concerns about the draft Convention on Access to Official Documents. At its meeting on 27 to 30 November 2007, the CDMC report states:
“contrary to what it had previously suggested the DH-S-AC [the Group of Specialists drafting the Convention] favoured the approach of defining in a somewhat restrictive manner official documents, instead of adopting the broader approach followed in Recommendation No. R (81) 19 on the access to information held by public authorities. Moreover, the approach followed by DH-S-AC appears not to take account of recent developments in international jurisdictions. More particularly, concern was expressed at the rather low common standards foreseen in the draft text.”
Read the CDMC's full text here in its meeting report at page 11, Item 16, para 39-40
Convention Campaign News:
Council of Europe Delays Finalising Access Convention
-- human rights experts call for more time to discuss problems with the text
Strasbourg, 7 November 2007: The Council of Europe’s main Human Rights Committee decided on Wednesday 7 November 2007 to postpone until April 2008 adoption of the draft European Convention on Access to Official Documents in order to give member states time for consideration of outstanding problems with the draft text.
Serious concerns about the treaty were presented to the meeting by over 250 civil society organisations, the Information Commissioners of eight member states1, the Slovenian Government, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The concerns include that the proposed Convention establishes a right of access to information but limits the right to administrative information, excluding other information held by the judicial and legislative branches and by private bodies performing public functions from the mandatory part of the treaty. Other major concerns include that there is no right to appeal administrative silence, and no right of recourse to a body empowered to order release of requested information if it decides in favour of the applicant.
At the meeting of the Steering Committee on Human Rights (CDDH) in Strasbourg on 7 November, a number of countries expressed concern that the treaty had been drafted by only 15 of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe with virtually no input from the other 32 states. Leading the call for more time to discuss setting higher standards were representatives of Slovenia and Norway, joined by representatives of Romania, Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, Latvia, Ireland, Austria and Portugal.
Some other states, including the UK, urged that the 15 country specialists who had prepared the draft text of the Convention should finish the Explanatory Memorandum (which explains how the Convention should be interpreted) before discussing where improvements are needed. The CDDH directed the specialists to complete the Explanatory Memorandum by February 2008 to permit consideration of both the treaty text and the Memorandum at the Committee’s next plenary meeting in April 2008.
States arguing most strongly for keeping the current text with no changes included Denmark, France, Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria, and Poland. Reasons given included that not all states have laws that meet the higher standards and that the current draft’s “minimum standards” approach is necessary to encourage ratifications by the largest possible number of member states. Responding to this, the Latvian representative noted that by setting standards in the Convention too low, ratifications would be easy, but the treaty would, in effect, be a dead letter.
Convention Campaign News:
Council Of Europe Specialists Refuse To Consider Proposals To Improve Draft Treaty On Access To Documents
Strasbourg, October 15 — In a 10 to 4 vote, a group of 14 country specialists meeting on 9-12 October in Strasbourg refused to consider proposals to bring the future European Convention on Access to Official Documents into line with the prevailing standards in the 47 countries of the Council of Europe.
Rejecting separate calls by the OSCE, six information commissioners, the Slovenian government, and 245 civil society groups, the specialists rejected further consideration of key aspects of the right to information such as the right to request access to all documents held by the judicial and legislative branches of government. They also dismissed further discussion of the right to appeal administrative failures to respond to an access request – a common problem in many countries. These provisions are currently not included in the draft Convention.
In a further blow to the right to information, the group refused to limit reservations to the future Convention, in effect permitting any State to enter reservations on any aspect of the right.
Helen Darbishire, Director of Access Info Europe, who was present as an observer at the discussions, commented: “It is highly disappointing that a Group dominated by the established democracies of Northern/Western Europe should refuse even to consider some very concrete language that would have ensured that the world’s first treaty on access to information sets acceptable standards.”
“Rather than acting as independent specialists, a number of members of the Group have openly stated that they have instructions from their governments to ensure that the future Convention requires no changes to domestic law. The result is a draft treaty that accommodates the flaws and idiosyncratic features of the domestic legislation of countries represented in the Group, and hence falls below prevailing standards. This is a betrayal of the Group’s mandate.”
The draft treaty will now pass to the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee on Human Rights (CDDH) for consideration on 8 November 2007. Access Info Europe, ARTICLE 19 and the Open Society Justice Initiative are calling on the CDDH not to adopt the treaty as it stands. They urge the CDDH either to introduce the proposed improvements itself or to return the draft Convention to the Group of Specialists for further consideration.
Convention Campaign - Advocacy Update:
NGOs call for improvements to draft treaty on access to documents: On 5 October 2007 a letter signed by 245 organizations and 269 individuals was submitted to the Group of Specialists of the Council of Europe that is drafting the treaty on access to official documents. The letter called for the future treaty fully to reflect prevailing standads on the right to information, including ensuring that the right applies to all branches of government.
The current version of the letter is here
Read the draft Convention here - full text in French and English
To read a bit more about the drafting process click here
Convention Campaign News:
OSCE raises concerns re draft treaty
11 September 2007: The Representative on Freedom of the Media of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (RFOM OSCE) has expressed concerns that the current draft of the Convention on Access to Documents contains "serious deficiencies" and has underlined the need to protect the right of access to information. In its submission to the Council of Europe dated 11 September 2007, the RFOM OSCE expresses concern that the proposed treaty falls short of international standards on the right to information, standards that the RFOM OSCE captured in a comparative study presented on 3 May 2007 (World Press Freedom Day).
Read the OSCE RFOM's Submission here