News from the OpeningParliament.org community:
In Paraguay, the President of the Senate signed a cooperation agreement with Semillas para la Democracia and the National Democratic Institute, agreeing to collaborate on developing initiatives to increase legislative transparency. The agreement includes a commitment from the Senate to strengthen legislative measures against corruption and to help build the capacity of civil society to monitor its work.
In South Africa, People’s Assembly launched the Members Interests Browser, which tracks data on MPs’ interests. Its features enable greater analysis than the PDF files published by Parliament, including features that allow users to filter and count interest declarations and explore the third parties referred to in declarations.
In Italy, OpenPolis published an Index of Parliamentary Productivity for 2014 that assesses the efficacy of MPs in performing parliamentary duties and passing legislation.
In Jordan, the Al-Hayat Center’s RASED Program released its first weekly report on the 2nd Ordinary Session of Jordan’s Parliament. Among other items, it drew attention to MPs attempting to form parliamentary committees outside official parliamentary procedures, which stipulate that the executive office appoints committees based on proportional representation of parliamentary blocs.
In Spain, Access Info Europe outlined a series of concerns about the Council of Transparency and Good Governance, a new body tasked with upholding governmental transparency requirements and citizens’ right of access to public information. Additionally, Access, Que Hacen Los Diputados, and CIVIO are calling for the immediate implementation of a law on public access to information, following the recent discovery that several MPs have used public funds to pay for personal travel.
In Nigeria, the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre participated in a forum at the National Assembly focused on the need to generate greater engagement between civil society and the legislature on four thematic issues, including local government autonomy, government/CSO relations, minimum wages, and the 2015 general elections.
In the United Kingdom, mySociety conducted research on the impact of digital civic tools by looking at whether its websites boost civic participation, coming away with several interesting conclusions.
In Greece, VouliWatch is crowfunding its efforts to promote transparency, political accountability and active citizenship in 2015. Still in its first year of operations, the PMO reports positive impacts, including 1000 registered users, 10,000 unique monthly visitors, and 500 questions and proposals submitted to its platforms’ MP profiles.
In Croatia, GONG and others sent a letter to the president and parliament urging greater public consultation and refinement of the government’s draft strategy for public administration reform, citing several shortcomings. Elsewhere, MPs called for more strict punishment of hate speech in the media, highlighting the deterioration of civil discourse and growing partisanship of news sources.
In Morocco, SimSim-Civic Participation published a newsletter with updates on Nouabook.ma, which now has 19 MPs involved in the initiative.
In Malaysia, Sinar Project used the Poplus component PopIt to create a database of Malaysian members of parliament, politicians, and organizations.
In France, RegardsCitoyens marked its fifth anniversary by synthesizing ten priorities for strengthening democratic transparency, open data and civic participation.
In the United States, the OpenGov Foundation received an award from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which it will use to implement, test and refine an online and open process for creating new laws that will allow the public to engage in the full cycle of lawmaking.
In Germany, Parliament Watch posted a detailed analysis including several infographics about German MPs’ conflicts of interest. Elsewhere, poliWHAT?! released a short video explaining the lobbying industry in Germany.
Other related news:
The Brazilian Senate’s Transparency Council is considering the creation of a common method to evaluate the performance of legislative institutions throughout the country, including the National Congress and city councils. The proposal is scheduled to be revised and submitted for public consultation in December.
India’s Ministry of Communications and Technology released a policy (PDF) on open APIs that calls for other government agencies to develop API’s in order to share information with each other and the public.
European Parliament unveiled an interactive infographic of its official Twitter accounts intended to help users find, “anything from interviews to press releases, the latest voting results from parliamentary committees, videos from EuroparlTV or background briefings from the EP Research Service.” The European Parliament manages nearly 100 official Twitter accounts.
Montenegro’s government approved a new bill that imposes limits, rules and penalties on lobbying. The new bill follows a recent EU Progress Report on Montenegro that criticized delays in the adoption of important anti-corruption regulations.
In South Africa, a language activist was granted leave to appeal his suit against the Speaker of the National Assembly and other government authorities that would force Parliament to publish legislation in all of South Africa’s eleven official languages.
The UK Speaker’s Digital Democracy Commission produced a video discussing digital democracy and the best ways of engaging young people in the political system. Parliament is piloting a project in which explanatory notes for legislative bills and acts are easier to navigate and function better with online content. Finally, check out the results from the recent UK Parliament Hackathon, including apps like “Child’s Guide to Parliament,” “MP & Friends,” and “Parli-N-Grams.”
Kenyan MP Adan Keynan plans to introduce the Parliamentary Powers and Privileges Bill 2014, a measure which would strengthen parliament’s executive oversight by enforcing Article 125 of the constitution, which grants either House of Parliament or any of its committees the prerogative to summon cabinet secretaries or any other individuals to give evidence or provide information.
Elsewhere, the Global Forum for Media Development, an international association representing over 200 media development organisations across the world, and the African Media Initiative will host Africa’s leading media associations in Nairobi this week to discuss the inclusion of freedom of expression and access to information in the UN’s new Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s).
John Oliver focused a critical, if humorous, segment of his show on state legislatures in the United States, looking at the lack of national attention paid to these bodies and the low levels of electoral competition for many seats in state legislatures.
Resources:
A summary of Aspasia Papaloi and Dimitris Gouscos’ recent paper analyzing the use of parliamentary data visualization as a tool for legislative transparency and citizen empowerment was published on Cornell’s VoxPopuLII blog.
The Paley Center for Media posted video of its recent event, “The Next Big Thing in Open Government,” which featured conversations on the meaning and importance of open government and new civic technologies in Washington and across the United States.
David Moore, of the Participatory Politics Foundation (PPF), wrote a piece about the need for more open-source tools in the open government community in order to catalyze greater engagement between voters and elected officials.
Events:
The Open Government Partnership Regional Meeting for the Americas will take place in San José, Costa Rica on November 18-19, preceded by a Civil Society Day, which will take place on November 17. OGP’s Legislative Openness Working Group will be convening a session focused on legislative ethics.
The Houses of Parliament Outreach Service in the UK will host Parliament 2115: re-imagining a democracy of the future from November 14-20. The event invites sci fi, fantasy and comic fans, gamers and scientists to visit parliament, or participate electronically using the hashtag #SciFiParl, to debate what democracy will look like in 2115.
Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society will host a talk by Tim Davies on November 25, titled Unpacking open data: power, politics and the influence of infrastructures. The event will draw on a series of empirical studies of open data around the world in order to pose questions about how changing open data regimes may reconfigure power and politics.
