The High-level Workshop on
Equal Access to Public Information, organized by
the OAS Department of International Law and the
Office of Guatemala’s Human Rights Ombudsman,
took place on August 27 and 28. It brought
together more than 75 participants from civil
society, the public sector, academia, and the
private sector to analyze the country’s current
regulatory framework in light of the provisions
of the Model Inter-American Law on Access to
Public Information and its Implementation Guide.
The event heard thematic
addresses given by Commissioner Ximena Puente de
la Mora, President of Mexico’s Federal Institute
for Access to Information and Data Protection
(IFAI); Commissioners Herminia Funes and Jaime
Mauricio Campos of the Institute of Access to
Public Information of El Salvador; Counselor
Alejandro Ferreiro of the Transparency Council
of Chile; and Ms. Suzanne Legault, Canada’s
Information Commissioner. The meeting was also
addressed by prominent institutions that work in
this field, such as the Carter Center, the
Regional Alliance for Free Expression and Access
to Information, and the civil society
organization Acción Ciudadana, as well as by
leading Guatemalan journalists such as Luis
Marroquín, a former editor of the Guatemalan
Official Gazette and of the daily Siglo XXI, and
Luis Felipe Valenzuela, director general of
Emisoras Unidas.
The institutions that
organized the meeting were represented by Dr.
Dante Negro, Director of the OAS Department of
International Law, Ms. Nathalie Samson, Chargé
d’Affaires at the Embassy of Canada in
Guatemala, and Ms. Claudia López David, Acting
Ombudsman for Human Rights in Guatemala.
The High-level Workshop also
involved sessions for discussing and exchanging
ideas, at which the participants gathered in
working panels to formulate specific
recommendations for improving and strengthening
the current legal provisions.
At these interactive
sessions, the representatives of the different
social stakeholders identified specific topics
for focusing the discussion of how the current
law is regulated; they agreed that the right of
access to information is a key element in
protecting a series of individual and collective
rights that define robust democratic systems,
and they also acknowledged its relationship with
the promotion of human rights, economic
development, and governance. The participants
applauded the OAS for this initiative and they
underscored the need to replicate the experience
in other countries in order to continue
fostering exchanges of experiences and of
technical expertise to the benefit of the
region’s countries.
This workshop was a part of a
cooperation project, sponsored by the OAS with
funding from the Canadian government, that is
intended to boost the capacity of the
Organization’s member states in the areas of
transparency and equitable access to public
information through the dissemination and
promotion of the implementation, in those
countries, of the Model Law on Access to Public
Information adopted by the OAS General Assembly
in 2010.
To date, the Department of
International Law of the OAS Secretariat for
Legal Affairs has organized similar events in
Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica,
Panama, Peru, and Guatemala.
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For additional information about Equal Access to Public Information, please visit our Website
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