Este post fue escrito por la Red Latinoamericana de Transparencia Legislativa.

Latinoamérica muestra un escenario diverso en materia de transparencia legislativa. El promedio de los 13 países evaluados por la tercera edición del Ínidce Latinoamericano de Transparencia Legislativa nos arroja un resultado de 50%, es decir, nos encontramos a mitad de camino. Los países que se ubicaron en los mejores puestos fueron Costa Rica con un 72%, Chile con el 64% y Paraguay con el 62%, mientras que Argentina (39%), República Dominicana (37%) y Venezuela (21%) se ubican en los últimos lugares.

Los estándares que el Índice evalúa fueron consensuados por las distintas organizaciones de la Red Latinoamericana por la Transparencia Legislativa y representan un nivel que consideramos exigible para todos los congresos de la Región. Avanzar en dichos estándares tiene por objetivo fortalecer a los Congresos como el espacio de deliberación democrática por excelencia a través de la apertura del proceso legislativo para efectos de aumentar los niveles de legitimidad del mismo y de sus resultados. Nos imaginamos a los congresos como el espacio donde la ciudadanía y representantes tienen la oportunidad de debatir y tomar acuerdos de forma informada, dictando normas que sean representativas de la voluntad ciudadana respecto de los principales asuntos públicos que ocupan a los países.

Son múltiples las amenazas a la democracia en nuestro continente: el hiperpresidencialismo, la demagogia, la concentración de riqueza y poder e incluso los gobiernos de facto, entre otros. Entendemos que legitimar el proceso de deliberación en los congresos es fortalecer la política democrática. Reconocer como espacios de decisión aquellos que son representativos de la diversidad que habita en nuestros países por sobre el poder concentrado en figuras o grupos específicos. La opacidad y falta de control sobre los congresos y sus miembros son elementos que han mostrado ser dañinos para la legitimidad de los mismos, con esta investigación buscamos dar luces sobre los aspectos en los que es necesario avanzar para revertir dicha situación.

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Lo siguiente fue escrito por Natalia Albañil, Coordinadora del Programa de Transparencia Legislativa Regional, NDI Colombia. 

En las últimas semanas se llevaron a cabo dos importantes eventos regionales en materia de Parlamento Abierto. El 25 y 26 de mayo en Asunción – Paraguay se realizó el primer encuentro anual de la Red de Parlamento Abierto de ParlAmericas, y el 31 de mayo, 1 y 2 de junio en Montevideo – Uruguay, el Encuentro Regional de la Alianza para el Gobierno Abierto (Open Government Partnership, OGP).

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Hace algunas semanas fuimos convocados desde San José por los amigos y colegas de Abriendo Datos Costa Rica para compartir con ellos un espacio que se venía organizando junto a la Asamblea Nacional de Costa Rica para debatir sobre las implicancias de un parlamento abierto. Esa primera invitación informal que partió de una lectura de nuestra investigación, fue tomando seriedad con el paso de los días y se fue construyendo una agenda muy rica que incluyó una conversación muy interesante en uno de los programas más escuchados de la mañana de la radio en San José, una reunión con los presidentes de las fracciones legislativas de la Asamblea y un gran seminario en la ULACYT.

La Alianza por una Asamblea Abierta

Hace más de dos años, al comenzar a llevar adelante el proyecto de investigación que luego publicaramos a través de ILDA, visitamos México para la segunda edición de ConDatos y AbreLatam. Luego de esa semana intensa escribí un post donde destacaba, entre otras cosas, la existencia de una Alianza por el Parlamento Abierto en ese país como un caso a seguir observando de cerca. Tristemente, y por diferentes motivos, no prosperó demasiado esa noble iniciativa que integraba actores tanto de la sociedad civil como del propio Parlamento.

En Costa Rica el caso fue similar pero con diferencias dignas de ser destacadas. La Alianza por una Asamblea Abierta (AAA) se conformó sólo por organizaciones de la sociedad civil, que aportaron diferentes puntos de vista a un planteo que se formalizó y presentó a la Asamblea Nacional.

Esta confluencia se presenta como “un espacio de encuentro y colaboración entre organizaciones de la sociedad civil de Costa Rica enfocado en impulsar y apoyar proyectos e iniciativas hacia políticas de gobierno abierto en la Asamblea Legislativa”. Desde ese lugar se logró arribar a un compromiso firmado por el Directorio Legislativo de la Asamblea sobre un plan de acción que comenzó a implementarse a fines de 2015 que contempla formación de los agentes públicos, concientización de los parlamentarios y desarrollar políticas de apertura efectiva. En este marco es que fuimos invitados a participar del Seminario Internacional de Parlamento Abierto.

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News from the parliamentary monitoring community:

In Afghanistan, the Free & Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan (FEFA) released its six-month report on parliamentary activities. Findings of the report include the number of plenary and committee sessions held, the number of laws approved, positive developments and shortcomings, as well as recommendations for improvement. The report is published during a critical period in Afghanistan, with  the government in the midst of extended political gridlock preventing the enactment of much needed reforms. FEFA also signed a MoU with the Meshrano Jirga, the upper house of parliament, to conduct a similar assessment, with aims to increase public awareness on parliament’s activities and strengthen the level of cooperation between parliament and civil society.

In Costa Rica, the Alliance for Open Assembly, which includes ACCESA, Abriendo Datos, Costa Rica Íntegra, Iplex, Proledi, and Ojo al Voto, partnered with the Fundación Directorio Legislativo to foment major strides toward openness within the Costa Rican legislature. Together they created and signed a commitment seeking to promote openness, transparency, and accountability. The commitment includes a variety of different components, each working to counter the existing lack of trust in Costa Rican institutions. This commitment combined with the drafting of an action plan for legislative opening seek to strengthen and enable “a more democratic democracy.”

In Mexico, for the tenth anniversary of the Collective for Transparency campaign, Fundar launched #ArmonizaTuLey, an initiative to monitor the process of harmonizing state laws with the new federal regulatory framework for transparency and access to information. With the approval of the constitutional reform in 2013 and the General Act in 2014, Mexico has set up a robust framework that safeguards these rights. Fundar reports that while the deadline for adoption of the new regulatory framework is fast approaching, 29 states in Mexico still have not completed this obligation. The Collective for Transparency calls on legislators to fulfill their legal obligation of harmonizing state laws, respect this timeline for action, and engage citizens in this effort.

In Kenya, Mzalendo Trust announced the second People’s Shujaaz Awards to recognize Parliamentarians for championing issues of high public interest in the National Assembly and Senate in 2015. The final selection was made based on the legislators’ demonstration of leadership, factoring in the motions that were put forth, and statements and petitions they represented. The nominees were chosen in consultation with civil society groups under the Parliamentary Initiatives Network. While Mzalendo hopes that the People’s Shujaaz Awards helps to spotlight the positive achievements and key contributions made in Parliament, Mzalendo also issued a list of lessons learned, with recommendations for the legislature to strengthen its image, communicate its work more effectively with citizens, and find new ways for civic engagement using technology and social media.

In the US, the OpenGov Foundation received a $200,000 grant from the Rita Allen Foundation to support the continued development of an open-source platform to digitize Chicago’s legislative process over the next two years. In partnership with Chicago’s City Clerk’s office, the project aims to keep legislation in standardized, accessible formats, and allow citizens to better share feedback with their elected officials.

In India, PRS Legislative Research published two op-eds on legislative reform in major news outlets.  The authors called to question the effectiveness of India’s legislature, highlighting in particular the decrease in legislative productivity caused by disruptions and lapses in conduct by members. With a detailed breakdown of how time was used during parliamentary proceedings, the articles underscores the necessity of urgent reforms to restore both the Parliament’s role as an effective deliberative body, as well as citizens’ faith in Parliament as a representative institution as a whole.

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It has been a busy few months for the global open parliament community! Below, we’ve compiled a collection of updates. With so much great work, we’re certain that we’ve missed some fantastic projects, initiatives, and events. As always, if you would like to see your work included in this News Brief, feel free to reach out to the site administrators on the contact page.

In case you missed it, Global Legislative Openness Week was a success around the world. More information can be found at OpenParlWeek.org, but highlights include:

• The Parliament of Georgia, the Legislative Openness Working Group, and a collection of local and international organizations organized a global legislative openness conference, entitled Committing to Openness: Parliamentary Action Plans, Standards, and Tools. The conference featured over 100 legislators, legislative staff, and civil society representatives from more than 30 countries who shared experiences advancing legislative openness and explored ways in which OGP can be most effectively leveraged to advance public access to legislative information and processes.
• Around the world, mySociety led a crowdsourcing campaign to collect structured, reusable data on politicians in 201 countries. This information is now public and available on their website.
• The Brazilian Chamber of Deputies launched a collection of new tech platforms to foster citizen engagement in the legislative process. To celebrate GLOW, the Chamber launched these new open source services for use outside Brazil.
• In Taiwan, Citizen Congress Watch (TWN) organized the 2015 International Conference on Congressional Reform and Watch, introduced for the first time in Taipei. Topics of discussion included best practices and experience sharing on congressional oversight and promoting transparency and reform in Congress. More information about the conference can be seen here.
• Open Knowledge Danmark, Foreningen Gennemsigt, and the Centre for Voting and Parties hosted an event on open parliamentary data in Denmark. The event, which was live streamed using Periscope, featured discussion of how best to make use of parliamentary data, how to turn it into usable information, and how to make it accessible to a broader audience. 

News from the parliamentary monitoring community:

In Mexico, from Oct 27-29, the Open Government Partnership’s Global Summit convened over 1500 open government advocates from civil society, government, and parliament. Speakers and participants shared experiences from their respective countries and provided real examples of how openness can improve public services, drive economic growth, reduce poverty and make governments more accountable to the people they serve. For the first time, the OGP Summit featured a “track” on legislative openness, which included a number of interesting sessions and a dedicated side meeting for MPs. A blog post sharing more information on the Summit will be posted shortly.

In Argentina, the government made strides forward in opening access to public information when the Chamber of Appeals ruled in favor of Poder Ciudadano, Fundación Directorio Legislativo, and other groups in their request to access administrative decisions made by the Chamber of Deputies. This ruling requires the Chamber to make the results of administrative decisions public by publishing them on its website.

In Kenya, Mzalendo conducted a comprehensive assessment of the contributions that women MPs made to the work of Kenya’s 11th parliament. In addition to a formal report, Mzalendo also published an infographic, which includes a word cloud on issues women MPs most commonly discussed in parliament.

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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.

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News from the OpeningParliament.org community:

In Europe, a recent ruling granted further access to the legislative process of the Council of the European Union. The decision is available in all EU languages here. The case was brought by Access Info Europe.

In Poland, Sejmometr published an analysis of the Polish Parliament’s progress towards openness, using the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness as a basis for analysis. 

In India, PRS Legislative Research published an article on the successes and failures of youth Members of Parliament. The Sunlight Foundation discusses the eighth anniversary of the Right to Information Act and implications for political finance transparency.

In Colombia, Transparencia por Colombia offered tips for understanding accountability efforts in the country, while Congreso Visible assessed efforts to bring equality for women to the legislature in the wake of a 2011 commission to improve gender equality.

In South Africa, the Right2Know campaign urged the South African parliament to redraft a bill on transparency to ensure accountable democracy, and offered a number of recommendations. The bill was recently returned to Parliament by the President amid a number of concerns.

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