CRITICAL REPORT RELEASED ON DRAFT COUNCIL OF EUROPE CONVENTION ON ACCESS TO OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS
Access to official documents is one important way to make the work of public authorities more transparent, throwing light onto how decisions are made, encouraging critical debate and potentially exposing corruption. The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has welcomed a draft Council of Europe convention as the first binding international treaty to lay down such a general right of access.
The report, released on 12 September 2008, also found that the convention has shortcomings, according to Mr. Klaas de Vries, Rapporteur to the Council's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. It found that "the definition of 'public authorities' in the draft is too narrow, allowing some public bodies to continue operating in the shadows, no time-limits are laid down, which would allow authorities to delay publication of awkward information until it had lost its value, and review bodies are not given the power to order disclosure of a requested official document where access has initially been refused."
Member states can also opt out of parts of the treaty by entering wide-ranging reservations when they ratify it.
The Committee has requested that the draft be sent back to its drafting experts for further consideration.
For the full report, see http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc08/EDOC11698.pdf.
[Source: Mr. Klaas De Vries, Rapporteur, Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Parliamentary Assembly of hte Council of Europe]