News from the parliamentary monitoring community:

In Guatemala, Congreso Transparente is promoting an online campaign to press the Congress to adopt a Manual on Legislative Transparency, which is based on the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness.

In Chile, Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente, Fundación Pro Acceso, and Chile Transparente released an open letter raising concerns about a bill before Congress that would  amend the Chilean FOI law. In light of the current scandal, Sunlight Foundation and other regional PMOs also released a statement calling on the government to reform political finance regulations and the relationship between the public and private sectors.

Also in Chile, Fundacion Ciudadano Inteligente released a study reviewing Chilean president Michelle Bachelet’s first year in office. The results showed that after one year in office she has introduced 41.8% of the laws promised during her campaign.   

In Morocco, Sim Sim Participation Citoyenne launched a new tool on its Nouabook.ma website that allows citizens to ask questions and get answers from their MPs using video. In particular, the new feature will help illiterate citizens interact directly with their MPs.    

In Uganda, Parliament Watch held a tweet chat with young MPs to discuss youth representation and how to make legislation more relevant to young people. Participants highlighted the importance of social media in bringing discussions about governance to the citizens and improving communication between youth and their representatives.

In Colombia, Transparencia por Colombia released results for the fourth national survey on anti-bribery practices in the private sector as well as an assessment that considers the transparency of sub-national government agencies.   

In Ecuador, Observatorio Legislativo presented a report analyzing the performance of  Ecuador’s National Assembly over the last two years. The report reviews laws discussed, MPs’ individual performance, government oversight, and institutional transparency.   

In the UK, following recent elections, MySociety has updated WriteToThem.com to allow citizens to contact newly elected MPs.

In Georgia, Transparency International Georgia won a freedom of information case against Georgia’s Ministry of Interior. This court decision sets a precedent that would make it more difficult government agencies to refuse information requests based on personal data protection claims. The organization also released its annual report.

In Cambodia, the Committee for Free and Fair Elections released an educational video to raise awareness about electoral reform, specifically looking at reforms that will improve elections in the country.

In Mexico, Borde Politico, in association with Harvard University and New York University, released an infographic that summarizes the results of a study which tracked the use of funds earmarked for infrastructure by municipal governments. The study reviewed audits from Mexico’s Supreme Audit Institution to identify how much money municipal governments had to invest in infrastructure and to find out what proportion of those funds was used to develop infrastructure projects that meet the needs of the poor.

In Spain, Fundacion Civio, in association with el  El Confidencial, Tecnilógica, Iron Hack, and CartoDB, hosted a hackathon exploring new ways to use, create, and share electoral information.  

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As always, please feel free to send updates through the OpeningParliament.org contact page for inclusion in the News Brief.

News from the OpeningParliament.org community:

Globally, the OGP’s Legislative Openness Working Group organized GLOW, or Global Legislative Openness Week. GLOW consisted of events and activities focused on transparent, participatory legislative processes organized by members of the parliamentary openness community in 30 countries. Further details about event outcomes can be found on the blog.

The voting period for Making All Voices Count’s Global Innovation Competition began October 22 and concludes November 23. The competition includes 241 ideas, many of which were submitted by members of the OP community. The public is encouraged to review these ideas and vote for those they believe will most effectively empower citizens and secure more accountable, open governance in the program’s 12 key countries.

In Latin America, the LALT Network released their 2014 Index of Legislative Transparency, with detailed analysis on the congresses of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, México, Perú, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

In Mexico, the Open Parliament Alliance launched as a collaboration between Congress, the Federal Institute for Access to Information and Data Protection (IFAI), and a coalition of civil society groups with the purpose of ensuring that Mexico’s 32 state legislatures and national congress comply with principles of parliamentary openness.

Mexico also hosted AbreLatam and Con Datos, two important events organized around open government, legislative transparency, and citizen participation. A short Spanish language summary of the conversations that took place at these events can be found here.

In Portugal, the parliament passed a resolution supporting the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness with near identical language to the Declaration itself. The resolution progressed through the entire legislative process, from committee to plenary, before ultimately being passed on July 10.

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News from the OpeningParliament.org community:

In the Netherlands, more than 400 municipalities will go to the polls on March 19. Research conducted by Open State, in collaboration with students from the University of Utrecht, recently concluded that information about local council voting records remains difficult to find or nonexistent for most municipalities across the country.  

In the United States, the Governance Lab at New York University announced the formation of a Research Network on Opening Governance, which will seek to develop blueprints for more effective and legitimate democratic institutions. The project was made possible through a three year grant of $5 million, from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, as well as a gift from Google.org.

Elsewhere In the United States, GovTrack.us released comprehensive report cards on a range of subjects, including government transparency, for Members of Congress for 2013. In February, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) completed its efforts to provide House of Representatives bill summaries in XML format for bulk data download. While GPO already makes available House bills, the Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, and other documents from the executive branch in XML, the new feature will increase the availability of objective descriptions of complex legislative text, and is thus an important step in the House Leadership’s goal of increasing transparency.  

In Venezuela, Transparency Venezuela launched a report on the activities of the National Assembly in 2013, focusing in particular on the committees of Finance and Comptroller. Transparency also released a report in January on the latest developments in the Petrocaribe Energy Cooperation Agreement, detailing issues with Haiti and the Dominican Republic.  

In South Africa,  the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) published an article about shrinking the accountability deficit created by a system where voters cannot directly call on individual public representatives on the basis that their votes put them there. The article highlighted a recent CSO initiative, the People’s Assembly website, to facilitate public participation. The website provides critical information in an easily understandable format to members of the public.

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News from the OpeningParliament.org community:

In Mexico, Visión Legislativa took on the task of reviewing fast track legislation and the legislative process as established by la Ley Orgánica del Congreso. The article gives a brief overview of some of the best pieces of legislation between the years 1917 and 2000. Visión Legislativa also recently published a history of legislative elections and political parties.

SayIt, a new component of the Poplus network, launched this week. The goal of Poplus, which mySociety and Ciudadano Inteligente founded, is to collaboratively build pieces of technology that make it quicker and cheaper for people around the world to build websites and apps designed to empower citizens.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Centre for Civil Initiatives reports that parliamentarians and citizens participated in 27 public meetings in 2013, providing a forum for parliamentarians and citizens to talk about the current situation on a given topic.

In Georgia, Transparency International Georgia issued a statement urging the Georgian Parliament not to vote for the postponement of a new rule related to witness interrogation during investigations, a process seen as unconstitutional.

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