Information newsletter
Issue 2(14), February 2005

Democracy Has Nothing to Hide
Gergana Jouleva, AIP

These were the words of the Mexican president Vicente Fox Quesada expressing the political will of his government to continue on the path towards greater transparency and implementation of the Freedom of Information Act. His speech was delivered on the Third International Conference of Information Commissioners held on February 21-23, 2005 in the Mexican city of Cancun.

The first two summits of the information commisioners were held in Berlin, Germany (2003) and Cape Town, South Africa (2004). Those were small-scale meetings where the commissioners had the opportunity to discuss their problems and cases. In Cancun this was only possible in the lobbies. The conference halls hosted about three-hundred participants from fifty countries, heard 130 presentations, and withessed the adoption of two declarations - one of the commissioners and one of the NGOs represented there. The conference hosts - Mexican Federal Institute of Access to Public Information reported before the participants the total conference expenditures - about 500, 000 USD.

Third International Conference of Information Commissioners: http://www.icic-cancun.org	Freedom of information advocates from SE Europe: activists from the Czech republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania.

Although some academics insist that the movement for freedom of information is not as powerful as environmental movements, Cancun left us with a different impression. The event gathered representatives from all freedom of information societies - commissioners, international governmental organizations, international and local NGOs, members of the freedom of information advocates network (http://www.foiadvocates.net), many academics and media.

Politics and civil pressure were the characteristic of the three conference days in Cancun. There were many political speeches and quite a few dominating statements of NGO representatives.

The lobbies also witnessed heated discussion: the commisioners had little opportunity to discuss their problems at their conference, wasn't the activity of NGOs too aggressive? The other viewpoint - that all commissioners must be aware of the situation they work in and that the pressure towards openness and democracy is increasing - also had its zealous supporters. Probably this is one of the differences between old democracies and countries who are on their way towards democracy and trasparency: information commissioners serve as a guarantee for the right to information access in the former, while in the latter politicians and NGOs strive for the establishment of this right.

Transparency, access to information, accountability, and the fight agains corruption are indeed values which have not been automatically granted to any society - they can only be established with struggles and constant supervision. This was the idea behind most speeches made at the Cancun conference.

Whether the Third International Conference of Information Commissioners took on the characteristics of Mexico - the host country - can be seen if you compare the three conferences held so far.

At the end all participants left with a clear and strong message, expressed by the politicians of Mexico: “Democracy has nothing to hide”.