For more than a decade, Venezuelans have faced great difficulties in obtaining public interest information from the government. There are several reasons for this. The main reason is that public officials or entities connected with public agencies do not comply with fundamental laws that stipulate the right of citizens to be informed through the disclosure of public interest information handled by the government. Moreover, there is a lack of knowledge among civil society actors on how to go about filing requests, reports or complaints. This is compounded by the fact that state agencies often deny any request for public information or simply fail to answer such requests.
In this scenario, given that we are prevented from accessing public information to which, as citizens, we are entitled, our recourse is to appeal to the international forums our country is part of, including the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, Amnesty International or the Centre for Justice and International Law. Reports or complaints can be filed under conventions, covenants, protocols or agreements between countries, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights or the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
What can we do in the event of a violation of the right to information?
At Fundación EsLaRed we have undertaken to support civil society organisations and individuals by helping them take action when their right to information has been denied. We do this by implementing a project developed with the support of APC entitled “Social auditing as a strategy for transformative change in society, through digital technologies, to identify violations of the right to access public information in Venezuela.” As part of this effort, we provide a social audit implementation guide to assess online access to public information, through the steps shown in Figure 1 (in Spanish), which include identifying a case and the public sector involved, establishing the grounds for complaint, preparing to address the case, organising an audit, documenting the case, following the case and disseminating findings.
Figure 1. Steps for implementing a social audit on access to public information
On a first level, the project conducted provides a diagnosis of the violation on the part of the Venezuelan government of its citizens’ right to access public information. A second level involves a situational analysis of the violation of this right to access public information in Venezuela and determining how the use of digital technologies can facilitate the defence of this right, given that interactions are conducted through the web and with internet resources. The third level contains the guide mentioned above, which outlines the steps for filing a request, complaint or report regarding any case in which access to public interest information is denied.
The implementation and success of the strategy to be followed depends on the efforts of leaders of civil society communities, NGOs, social communication organisations and individuals who wish to exercise a right that is protected under the National Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and provided for under the Transparency and Access to Public Interest Information Act.
This initiative seeks to contribute to raise awareness on the processes that must be followed to successfully file a request or complaint regarding difficulties in accessing public information. While focused on Venezuela, this is an initiative that can be replicated in other countries or inspire similar initiatives. At Fundación EsLaRed we are interested in proposals, exchanges and collaborations that enable the development of joint solutions through the study of common cases, in order to continue to address problems faced in exercising the universal right to public information.
The production of this guide was made possible through an APC member subgrant supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).
Edmundo Vitale is general manager at Fundación Escuela Latinoamericana de Redes (EsLaRed), member of the APC network.