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Nearly sixty countries around the world have national laws on Freedom of Information which set rules on what Government bodies have to reveal to the public. Over forty more countries have pending bills.
Canada's Freedom of Information Act is called the Access to Information Act. It allows citizens to demand records from federal bodies. It is enforced by the Information Commissioner of Canada.
There is also a complimentary Privacy Act. The purpose of the Privacy Act of Canada, which was introduced in 1983, is to extend the present laws of Canada that protect the privacy of individuals with respect to personal information about themselves held by a government institution and that provide individuals with a right of access to that information. It is a Crown copyright. Complaints for possible violations of the Act may be reported to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
There are four "Bundesländer" with an "Informations-Freiheits-Gesetz", see [1]
The Irish Freedom of Information Act came into effect in April, 1998. The Act has led to a sea-change in the relationship between the citizen, journalists, Government departments and public bodies. There are very few restrictions on the information that can be made public. A notable feature is the presumption that anything not restricted by the Act is accessible. In this regard it is a much more liberal Act than the proposed UK Act, which has not yet been implemented. Decisions of public bodies in relation to requests for information may be reviewed by the Information Commissioner.
For a comprenensive list of the almost 400 bodies (each of which has appointed a Freedom of Information Officer) currently within the scope of the FOI Act visit: Irish public bodies within scope of FOI act website
In Sweden, the fundamental law of 1766 concerning Freedom of Press granted public access to government documents . It is thus a fundamental part of the Swedish Constitution. In Swedish this is known as Offentlighetsprincipen (The Principle of Publicity), and has been valid since.
In the United Kingdom there was traditionally no 'right to know' on behalf of the public. Regulation and control of the Executive was traditionally carried out by Committees of the House of Commons and House of LordsThis article is about the British House of Lords. See also the historical Irish House of Lords. The House of Lords is a component of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also includes the Sovereign and the British House of Commons. The House of Lor. However, as part of their 19971997 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar), and was designated the International Year of the Reef''. Events January January 3 NBC's Today Show Bryant Gumbel signs off for the last time January 8 Mister Rogers receives a star on t electionSee also Election (movie) for the film directed by Alexander Payne For the Theological concept of election, see Predestination An election is a process in which a vote is held to elect candidates to an office. It is the mechanism by which a democracy fill manifestoA manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. In the United Kingdom, and in some other parliamentary democracies, political parties prepare electoral manifestoes which set out both their strategic direction a the Labour Party promised to bring in a freedom of information act.
This was duly done with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 , but the final version is believed by some to have been diluted from that proposed while Labour were in opposition. Also, the timetable (in the UK Acts of Parliament do not necessarily come into force on the date they are made) for bringing the Act into force has been pushed back . The full provisions of the Act will come into force on 1 January 2005.
The act is the responsibility of the Lord Chancellor's DepartmentThe Lord Chancellor's Department was a United Kingdom government department. It was founded in 1885 as the Lord Chancellor's Office to give the Lord Chancellor a staff answerable to him. It increased greatly in powers after the Courts Act 1971. In 2003 it [2] now renamed the Department for Constitutional AffairsThe Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) is a United Kingdom government department. Its creation was announced on 12 June 2003 with the intention of replacing the Lord Chancellor's Department. It is primarily responsible for reforms to the Constitu. The Act led to the renaming of the Data Protection Commissioner who is now known as the Information Commissioner and it is the Office of the Information Commissioner who will oversee the operation of the Act, when it comes into force. [3]
The Act itself is Crown Copyright but can be found at the website of HM Stationery Office [4].
The Act creates a general right of access, on request, to information held by public authorities (Schedule 1 to the Act sets out a long list of the authorities covered by the Act). However, there are numerous exemptions. Some of these are absolute; some are qualified, which means that the public authority has to decide whether the public interest in disclosing the relevant information outweighs the public interest in maintaining the exemption. An applicant for information who considers that a request has been wrongly rejected may apply to the Information Commissioner, who has the power to order disclosure. However, such orders can be appealed to a specialist tribunal (the Information Tribunal) and in some circumstances Government has the power to override orders of the Information Commissioner.
Two features of the UK Freedom of Information Act deserve special mention, as they differ from the position in many other countries. One such feature is that requests by individuals for access to their own personal information will fall outside the Act, and will continue to be dealt with under the Data Protection Act 1998. The second feature is that there is no procedure whereby third parties can challenge a decision by a public authority to disclose information: for instance, if a commercial organisation provides information to a public authority, and the authority discloses that information in response to a FOI Act request, the commercial organisation has no right of appeal against that decision. By contrast, "reverse FOI" applications of this type are common in the US.
There are a number of books about the Act. "The Law of Freedom of Information" (MacDonald, Jones et al.: OUP 2003) and "Information Rights" (Coppel at al.: Sweet and Maxwell 2004) are comprehensive works.
The UK's Freedom of Information journal publishes useful articles from experts on FOI law and includes regular news updates. [5]
A useful UK resource is: UK Freedom of Information Act Blog : news, views and updates on UK and worldwide FOI, maintained by Steve Wood, Lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University.
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