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The Right of Access to Public Information pp 543–569Cite as

Access to Information and Its Disclosure

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Abstract

Brazilian Law N° 12.527 of 18 November 2011 on Access to Information (LAI) establishes fundamental rules to ensure citizens find information on government websites (active transparency) and can request information not previously made available by the government (passive transparency). The Brazilian FOI law applies to all public entities that are members of the direct administration of the Executive, Legislative, Judiciary and Autonomous Bodies, as well as public companies, joint stock companies and other entities of indirect public administration.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a better understanding of the legal system of Brazil, see: http://1.usa.gov/1Qc1WCD (Accessed on 15 February 2017).

  2. 2.

    Article 5, item 33 of the Brazilian Constitution (Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil de 1988) states: “[…] all persons have the right to receive from public agencies information in their private interest or of collective or general interest; such information shall be furnished within the period established by law, under penalty of liability, except for information whose secrecy is essential to the security of society and of the National Government”.

  3. 3.

    Article 37 para 3, item 2 of the Brazilian Constitution, provides that “The direct or indirect public administration of any of the Branches of the Union, States, Federal District and Counties, shall obey the principles of legality, impersonality, morality, publicity and efficiency, as well as the following: The law shall regulate the forms of user participation in direct and indirect public administration, specifically regulating: […] II – user access to administrative registries and information about governmental acts, observing the provisions of Article 5, items X and XXXIIII”.

  4. 4.

    Article 216 of the Brazilian Constitution, provides that “Brazilian cultural heritage includes material and immaterial goods, taken either individually or as a whole, that refer to the identity, action and memory of the various groups that form Brazilian society, including: I. forms of expression; II. modes of creating, making and living; III. scientific, artistic and technological creations; IV. works, objects, documents, buildings and other spaces intended for artistic-cultural manifestations; V. urban complexes and sites with historical, landscape, artistic, archeological, paleontological, ecological and scientific value.” Article 216 para 2, provides that “It is the responsibility of public administration, as provided by law, to maintain governmental documents and take measures to make them available for consultation by those that need to do so.”

  5. 5.

    Mendel 2009, p. 3.

  6. 6.

    Ghione 2012.

  7. 7.

    Michener 2010, p. 10–11.

  8. 8.

    Mendel 1999.

  9. 9.

    Among the many examples of standards of matiz publicistica that focus on the role of private agents, one can cite Article 10 of the Federal Law N° 9.637 of 15 May 1998 (Law of Social Organizations), which provides that “when the seriousness of the facts or the public interest demand, having founded evidence of misappropriation of assets or public origin resources, those responsible for oversight offer representation to the Prosecutor, the Attorney General of the Union or the entity’s Attorney to request from the competent court the decree of the unavailability of the entity’s assets and the seizure of the assets of its leaders, as well as public agents or third parties that may have been enriched illicitly or caused damage to public property.”

  10. 10.

    Clève & Franzoni 2013.

  11. 11.

    Greater openness, as I have argued, can be justified on instrumental grounds, as a means to an end, such as reducing the likelihood of the abuse of power. Greater openness is an essential part of good governance, but I also believe that greater openness has an intrinsic value. Citizens have a basic right to know. I have tried to express this basic right in a number of different ways: the public has paid for the information; for government officials to appropriate the information that they have access to for private gain, if only for the nonmonetary return of good newspaper coverage, is as much theft as stealing any other public property. While we all recognize the necessity of collective action and the consequences of collective actions for individual freedoms, we have a basic right to know how the powers that have been surrendered to the collective are being used. This seems to me to be a basic part of the implicit contract between the governed and those they have selected to temporarily govern them. The less directly accountable a government agency is to the public, the more important it is that its actions be open and transparent. By the same token, the more independent and less directly politically accountable a government agency is, the greater the presumption for openness. Openness is one of the most important checks on the abuse of public fiduciary responsibilities. While such openness may not guarantee that wise decisions will always be made, it would be a major step forward in the ongoing evolution of democratic processes, a true empowerment of individuals to participate meaningfully in the decisions concerning the collective actions that have such profound effects on their lives and livelihoods.

    The challenge is to create a truly transparent and open government. The incentives for secrecy are great, and so too are the opportunities for evading the intent of any disclosure regulations. If formal meetings have to be open, then all decisions can be made in informal meetings. If written material is subject to disclosure, then officials will have an incentive to ensure that little is written down, and what is written down will be for the public record. Given these limitations of legalistic approaches, the emphasis must be on creating a culture of openness, where the presumption is that the public should know about and participate in all collective decisions (Stiglitz 2002, p. 42).

  12. 12.

    The referred to provisions delimit the information that should be published by private entities, as well as the procedure for the transfer of information relating to agreements, contracts, terms of partnerships, arrangements or other similar instruments. Article 63 of the Brazilian Decree N° 7.724 of 16 May 2012, provides that “The private non-profit organizations that receive public funds to carry out public interest actions should publicize the following information: I – copy of the updated bylaws of the entity II – an updated list of names of entity leaders; III – a full copy of the agreements, contracts, terms of partnerships, arrangements or similar instruments made with the Federal Executive branch, respective addendums, and final reports of accountability, in the form of legislation applicable. §1 The information contained in the introductory paragraph will be posted on the website of the private entity and on the general public access bulletin board in its headquarters. §2 The disclosure on the website referred to in §1 may be waived by decision of the public body or entity, by express justification of the entity, in the case of private non-profit organizations that do not have the means to carry it out. §3 the information referred to in the introductory paragraph must be published from the moment the agreement, contract, partnership agreement, adjustment or like instrument is concluded and will be updated regularly and available no later than one hundred and eighty days after delivery of the final accountability”? (does not work here) and Article 64, “Requests for information relating to agreements, contracts, terms of partnerships, arrangements or similar instruments provided for in Article 63 should be submitted directly to the agencies and entities responsible for the transfer of funds”.

  13. 13.

    Mendel 1999, p. 8.

  14. 14.

    The aforementioned Article 2 also establishes the minimum amount of information on the list that must be put at the disposition of the citizens, such as: [1] operational information about how the public body functions, including costs, objectives, audited accounts, standards, achievements and so on, particularly where the body provides direct services to the public; [2] information on any requests, complaints or other direct actions which members of the public may take in relation to the public body; [3] guidance on processes by which members of the public may provide input into major policy or legislative proposals; [4] the types of information which the entity holds and the form in which this information is held; and [5] the content of any decision or policy affecting the public, along with reasons for the decision and background material of importance in framing the decision. See Mendel 1999.

  15. 15.

    Canotilho 2002, p. 510–511.

  16. 16.

    LaRue 2011, para 85–87.

  17. 17.

    Available at the address www.pbh.gov.br/acessoainformação. Accessed on 15 February 2017.

  18. 18.

    Available at www.pbh.gov.br/transparênciacopa2014 (Accessed on 15 February 2017).

  19. 19.

    See www.pbh.gov.br/faleconosco (Accessed on 15 February 2017).

  20. 20.

    Figueiredo 2003.

  21. 21.

    Mendel 2008, p. 33. See Portal Brasil 2013.

  22. 22.

    United Nations 2011.

  23. 23.

    Mendel 2009, p. 141.

  24. 24.

    Federal Supreme Court of Brazil (Supremo Tribunal Federal), Mandado de Segurança, 16903/DF (Judgment of 14 November 2012).

  25. 25.

    Federal Supreme Court of Brazil, Mandado de Segurança, 16903/DF (Judgment of 14 November 2012). p. 9.

  26. 26.

    Federal Supreme Court of Brazil, Mandado de Segurança, 16903/DF (Judgment of 14 November 2012). p. 9.

  27. 27.

    Federal Supreme Court of Brazil, Mandado de Segurança, 16903/DF (Judgment of 14 November 2012). p. 20.

  28. 28.

    Federal Supreme Court of Brazil, Mandado de Segurança, 16903/DF (Judgment of 14 November 2012). p. 12.

  29. 29.

    Stiglitz 2002, p. 36; Michener 2010, p. 10–11.

  30. 30.

    Fortini, Avelar & Ferreira 2013, p. 1032–1041.

  31. 31.

    Fortini, Avelar & Ferreira 2013, p. 1032–1041.

  32. 32.

    Federal Supreme Court of Brazil, Agravo no Recurso Extraordinário 652.777 (Judgment of 23 April 2015).

  33. 33.

    Fortini, Avelar & Ferreira 2013, p. 1032–1041.

  34. 34.

    Fortini, Avelar & Ferreira 2013, p. 1044.

  35. 35.

    Fortini, Avelar & Ferreira 2013, p. 1041 et seq.

  36. 36.

    Fortini, Avelar & Ferreira 2013, p. 1041.

  37. 37.

    Fortini, Avelar & Ferreira 2013, p. 1031.

  38. 38.

    Fortini, Avelar & Ferreira 2013, p. 1045.

  39. 39.

    Diagnostic Research into the Values, Knowledge and Culture of Access to Public Information in the Executive Branch of the Federal Republic of Brazil.

  40. 40.

    Portal Planalto 2015.

  41. 41.

    Michener et al. 2014.

  42. 42.

    The Access to Information Act: Federal Executive Branch. See Transparência Pública 2016.

  43. 43.

    Fortini 2011, p. 120.

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List of Cases

  • Federal Supreme Court of Brazil (Supremo Tribunal Federal) 23.04.2015., Agravo no Recurso Extraordinário, 652.777/SP, http://bit.ly/1R1BN6l (Accessed on 15 June 2016).

  • Federal Supreme Court of Brazil (Supremo Tribunal Federal) 14.11.2012., Mandado de Segurança, 16903/DF, http://bit.ly/1UAvmu9 (Accessed on 15 June 2016).

  • Federal Supreme Court of Brazil (Supremo Tribunal Federal) 10.07.2012., Suspensão Liminar 623, http://bit.ly/1UAuaah (Accessed on 15 June 2016).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

    Cristiana Maria Pinto e Silva Fortini & Mariana Magalhães Avelar

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  1. Cristiana Maria Pinto e Silva Fortini
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  2. Mariana Magalhães Avelar
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Correspondence to Cristiana Maria Pinto e Silva Fortini .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty for Economics, Law and Social Science, University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany

    Hermann-Josef Blanke

  2. School of Law, Fluminense Federal University, Niterói, Brazil

    Ricardo Perlingeiro

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Fortini, C.M.P.e.S., Avelar, M.M. (2018). Access to Information and Its Disclosure. In: Blanke, HJ., Perlingeiro, R. (eds) The Right of Access to Public Information. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-55554-5_16

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