brazil-comment-on-the-draft-bill-on-access-to-information

Comment on the Draft Bill on Access to Information of Brazil November 2009 ARTIGO 19 Brasil · Rua Barão de Itapetininga, 93 – 5º andar · São Paulo – SP · CEP 01042-908 · Brazil Tel: +55 11 3057 0042 · +55 11 3057 0071 · comunicação@artigo19.org · http://www.artigo19.org ARTICLE 19 · Free Word Centre · 60 Farringdon Road · London · EC1R 3GA · United Kingdom Tel: +44 20 7324 2500 · Fax: +44 20 7490 0566 · info@article19.org · http://www.article19.org This Comment provides an analysis of the changes to the draft Bill on Access to Information 1of Brazil (amended Bill) introduced by the Special Commission of the Brazilian Congress. The original Bill was prepared by the government and published on 3 May 2009. In July 2009, ARTICLE 19 published a Memorandum analysing the original draft and making a 2number of recommendations for reform. This Comment should be read in conjunction with that Memorandum. 1. Positive
Changes
The amended Bill includes a number of positive changes. Indeed, all of the changes it introduces are positive, with one exception. We note, first of all, that the changes address three of our recommendations head-on: 1. Public Bodies We had strongly urged that the law include a definition of public bodies. The original Bill completely lacked any definition of what bodies it would cover. This would clearly be a serious lacunae in a right to information law and almost all of the over 80 such laws around the world do ...