Issues of legislative openness and citizen engagement were highlighted at the European and Asia Pacific regional meetings of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) last week, as NDI and partners in the Chilean Congress organized sessions of the Legislative Openness Working Group.

At the Asia Pacific regional conference in Bali (May 6-7), an event hosted by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel of high-level officials from government, parliament and civil society. The panel delved into the challenges that parliaments face in engaging citizens who often have a declining trust in government.

New Zealand Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne described his government’s use of technology to respond to citizens’ increasing expectations, saying, “Not only are people much more willing to engage using the Internet, they expect to transact and engage via the Internet.” Dunne said that nearly 60 percent of New Zealanders report using government services online, a win-win. “This shift in the use of technology gives governments the ability to reach a wider audience for lower cost.”

Panelists address the audience in a LOWG session at the OGP Asia Pacific regional conference in Indonesia.

New Zealand also has ascribed this strategy to the legislative branch. It was the first country to attempt to crowdsource citizen input into legislation, creating an online “wiki” to collect citizens’ ideas on the 2008 Policing Act. The Parliament continues to allow online citizen submissions around draft bills under consideration as part of its recently launched beta.govt.nz website, which also provides a plethora of information about parliamentary activity.

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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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In India, PRS Legislative Research released two very interesting documents: a concept note entitled “Rethinking the Indian Parliament” and a series of data visualizations of parliamentary activity. These accompanied PRS’s annual conference on effective legislatures, the lectures of which are available here. The visualizations were constructed from their firsthand data gathering, available here. The latest PRS report on parliamentary performance is available here. The Indian parliament passed a bill to form a new anti-corruption agency.

In Nigeria, CISLAC published a guide to understanding the parliamentary ethics and conduct regime, defining the problems that exist, and identifying the role of MPs. CISLAC also provided an overview of the two-day Seminar on “African State Legislatures: Subnational Politics and National Power” organized by Landmark University Omu-Aran in collaboration with National Endowment for Democracy and University of America in Omu-Aran, Kwara.

In Tunisia, Al Bawsala, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Carter Center issued a joint statement on urging the National Constituent Assembly to ensure the new constitution of Tunisia is brought into conformity with international human rights standards and obligations of the country under international law.

In Zimbabwe, a new parliamentary monitoring platform was launched: KuvakaZim. The founders state, “The KuvakaZim project was born from a general concern regarding the accountability and activities of Zimbabwean members of Parliament and their duties in regard of their representative roles.” mySociety also wrote a post about this new platform, as KuvakaZim is utilizing their Pombola platform.

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In India, one of the newest PMO endorsers, Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS), was featured in an article on right to information efforts. Here is an older article on their important efforts. Elsewhere in India, Chaksu Roy of PRS Legislative Research published an article about the need to simplify the language of legislation. The Hindu recently considered the impact of open government data in India.

In Mexico, Eduardo Bohórquez from Transparencia Mexicana and Melissa Ortiz from Fundar appeared on the Congressional Channel’s Pesos y Contrapesos (checks and balances) to discuss Open Parliament.  A study done by Visión Legislativa and Animal Político found that the Senate failed to release complete information to a request about the amount of contracts made between September 2012 and July 2013.  Visión Legislativa wrote an article about budget transparency and how to apply its principles in the context of Mexico. Curul501, in partnership with Visión Legislativa and Borde Político, launched Presupuesto Abierto (Open Budget). We recently highlighted the work of Curul501 in a case study on OpeningParliament.org

In Italy, citizens are demanding more transparency in the work of parliamentary committees. TechPresident recently covered participatory democracy efforts in the country.

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In Taiwan, the folks at the PMO g0v.tw have a neat version tracking tool for amendments to existing legislation. An example is here.  

In Ghana, the Africa Freedom of Information Centre and Ghana Right to Information Coalition have praised the government for demonstrating resolve to deepen transparency and good governance as a means of improving the living conditions of Ghanaians by tabling in Parliament the Right to Information Bill.

In Japan, the Guardian reports that officials who leak ‘special state secrets’ and journalists who seek to obtain them could face prison if the proposed state secrets law is passed.

In South Africa, the Right2Know organization continued to mobilize against a Secrecy Bill which was recently passed by the parliament. OKF South Africa covered new efforts to increase transparency on the city of Cape Town’s by-laws.

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In Ukraine, protests against the government were met with brutal force. TI Ukraine expressed “burning indignation” at the government’s response. CHESNO offered dramatic videos from the legislative chamber on a no-confidence vote in the Parliament, as well as a vote to keep former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko imprisoned. Opora demanded action against the culprits and called for a support for the no-confidence vote.

In the United Kingdom, mySociety requested input on a survey about the UK Parliament’s online services and wrote about how critical research is key to the “civic power” sector. The UK Parliament recently held a hackathon (list of projects here, collected tweets here), while the House of Lords launched a new website to engage members. A number of CSOs participated in an “Open House” event on reforming the House of Commons. Simon Burall of Involve has follow-up thoughts here.

In Uruguay, DATA announced its recent membership in the Latin American Network for Legislative Transparency (LALT Network), particularly relevant now that Uruguay is part of the Open Government Partnership’s Legislative Openness Working Group.

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In Spain, Qué hacen los diputados released an analysis of the parliamentary website, using the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness as a base point. Qué hacen los diputados continued their series on forms of citizen participation in politics by looking at basic institutional norms of Spain’s Autonomous Communities. Fundación Ciudadana Civio reported that the new Quién Manda? platform already has 2,500 profiles and 3,200 verified relationships. Civio also published guidelines for republishing their content and projects, stating, “All of our articles are re-publishable. We do not compete with media. We want you to use our information.”

In Romania, the Institute for Public Policy called for public debate on the future of an MPs Code of Conduct, citing concerns that the current draft of the code does not take into account the perspective of civil society. The Ratiu Center for Democracy highlighted Roma activist Dr. Angela Koczi as the recipient of the Ion Ratiu Democracy Award by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

In Argentina, El Estadista published an article by the director of CIPPEC’s Local Development Program on how e-governance can help improve citizen participation. Directorio Legislativo conducted a series of interviews via Twitter with candidates from different provinces and parties in the lead up to legislative elections. The Executive Director of Directorio Legislativo wrote a guest post for the Sunlight Foundation blog, discussing the decade of struggle it took for Argentina’s Congress to publish the declarations of assets and conflicts of interests of its members.

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