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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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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Latin American legislatures have significant work to do to meet international standards on openness and transparency.  This is evident from the latest findings of the Latin American Index for Legislative Transparency, unveiled between 15-25 September during Global Legislative Openness Week (GLOW) in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. The average country score was below 40 percent. While Peru (55%) and Chile (53%) lead the index, Argentina (36%) ranks in seventh place, followed by Bolivia (24%) and Venezuela (21%).

What does the Index measure?

The Index comprises four dimensions: (i) Legal regulations; (ii) Parliamentary work; (iii) Budget and Administrative Management; and (iv) Mechanisms for Participation, Public Engagement and Accountability.

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News from the OpeningParliament.org community:

In India, national elections closed on May 16, with Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party anticipated to win more than the 272 seats required for a parliamentary majority. In advance of the election, Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) developed report cards for members of the Lok Sabha. The report cards provide citizens with information gathered through the Right To Information Act and other government websites and assess MP performance on factors like attendance and efforts to introduce new development within their districts. See here for more information on SNS’ methodology.

Last month, PRS Legislative Research provided a historical comparison of the number of bills passed to ordinances declared during each Lok Sabha since 1952.

In Chile, delegates from 27 countries gathered in Santiago on April 29-30 for the first Poplus Conference, organized by mySociety and Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente. Participants shared goals for the future of the Poplus network, a nascent project with the goal to create and share open source code that helps civic organizations around the world.

In the European Union, voting for European Parliamentary elections will take place May 22-25. Election results will be available in open data format, allowing interested users to retrieve raw data, use filters to present the information in custom ways, and publish it on their own online platforms.

In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Kohovolit.eu launched an election calculator for the European Parliament that allows users to browse voting data of European MPs from 2009 to 2014. The calculator allows users to curate the data by selecting issues important to them and reviewing how closely the voting records of different EMPs match their views.

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News from the OpeningParliament.org community:

In Venezuela, Transparencia Venezuela outlined various civil rights in response to the worsening human rights situation in Venezuela. Earlier in February, the group joined with Forum for Life and other Venezuelan organizations to issue a statement condemning the increasing violence, arbitrary detention, and spread of misinformation by the government.

The European Parliament recently called on the government of Venezuela to disarm pro-government militant groups targeting ongoing protests with impunity. In a joint resolution, the Parliament called for the dispatch of a European-led monitoring group to Venezuela and for the Maduro government to withdraw arrest warrants issued for opposition leaders.

In the Ukraine, CHESNO suggested five criteria for the composition of a new cabinet of ministers and other management authorities in Ukraine. The President of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (who has previously blogged on OpeningParliament) stated that the Assembly should play a strong role in direct talks between Ukraine and Russia.

Meanwhile, OPORA reported that documents taken from the Party of Regions headquarters in Chernivtsi may reveal violations of the 2012 electoral law, including the improper use of administrative resources by the Party, indirect vote-buying, using indirect Party representatives to obtain a majority in the election commissions, and the improper handling and storage of personal data lists.

In Afghanistan, the Free and Fair Election Forum (FEFA) released its first election observation report, which analyzes the security and electoral environment and reports violations observed so far in the run up to the April 5 presidential election.

In Mexico, Senator Laura Rojas spoke during Transparency Week in Mexico in support of further efforts to open government, which she said would address public concern with closed door negotiations on appointments, lack of budget transparency, confusion about allocation of resources for parliamentary travel, and many other issues. During Transparency Week activities, Senate President Raul Cervantes announced the creation of a joint commission to recommend actions to increase the transparency of Mexico’s government.

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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 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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