MEDIA/RIGHTS-MEXICO: Fox Pledges Easy Access to Public Info

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Nov 3 2000 (IPS) - Media and citizen access to public information in Mexico, long limited by government secrecy and a thick tangle of red tape, has received a boost from a new website set up by a local print media group and pledges of future transparency and open access by President-elect Vicente Fox and lawmakers.

Politicians of all stripes, members of the business community, and Fox’s team all promise to work for greater transparency, after 71 years of uninterrupted rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), during which citizen and media access to information has been severely curtailed.

Fox, of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), promises to guarantee the transparency of the work of civil servants by opening up new channels of access to information, as an antidote to corruption, after he takes office Dec 1.

The communications group Reforma, which owns four leading daily newspapers in four different cities, launched a website this week — http://www.juanciudadano.com — promoting open access to public information.

The Internet site, which will be advertising-free, invites anyone who has been refused information that should be public, would like to know what information citizens in other countries have access to, or would like to debate such issues to log on.

“In this new stage in Mexico, we the citizens, by delegating authority, choose to know what is happening in our country, what decisions are made, and how they affect us,” states the invitation to visit Reforma’s new web location.

Under no circumstances have Mexicans “given up to public functionaries the right to decide which information we can and cannot access. The government’s information must be available to us; it is our country; it is our right,” the website states.

The site urges the government to open up those meetings where public affairs are discussed, grant the public access to official archives, punish anyone who conceals public information, and guarantee an open judicial system not based on secrecy.

In a similar vein, Fox’s coordinator of communications, Martha Sahagún, and a group of PAN lawmakers presented a draft law this week designed to open up government information to the public.

The proposal is to create a central office in charge of coordinating information, attached to the presidency, which would send out orders for each government office or agency to open up its archives and act with transparency.

The PAN legislators also proposed amending several laws that currently limit access to information.

The Law on the Responsibilities of Public Servants, for instance, provides for sanctions for government employees who violate their duty to protect the documents and information in their care.

Mexico’s penal code also stipulates sanctions for anyone who reveals any “secret” without the consent “of those who could be harmed or slandered.” It also denies access by third parties to legal proceedings.

Furthermore, anyone who divulges “confidential” information that affects people who are the focus of a tax audit is currently considered a “criminal.”

Based on vaguely-worded laws and regulations, but above all on a closed, overly-centralised political culture, PRI governments have locked away information to avoid public scrutiny, Oscar Chávez, a communications researcher at the private La Salle University, told IPS.

Obtaining even simple information, like the number of staff employed by a government ministry or the salaries earned by civil servants, is an odyssey for Mexican reporters, who must send letters to different departments, place numerous phone calls, fill out questionnaires and, then, wait — often for a long time.

“If it is difficult for a journalist, you can just imagine what it is like for a common citizen, in questions that shoyuld be open and transparent,” said Chávez.

Nevertheless, since the late 1980s, the tight controls exercised by the PRI have slowly but surely been easing, partly due to pressure from the increasingly independent media, whose close relationship with the PRI has begun to loosen up.

But while Mexico has made major strides towards a true democracy in the past few years, much information is still locked away and out of sight, said Chávez.

Fox promises that unlike the PRI administrations, the members of his cabinet will inform Congress of their work on a weekly basis at the very least — one of the best formulas for fighting corruption, according to the president-elect.

Fox, a former Coca Cola executive, also promised the media that he would hold weekly press conferences, whenever he is not travelling.

In his six years in office, outgoing President Ernesto Zedillo held few news briefings, and never allowed a conference to be organised with the entire foreign press corps — although he did grant a number of exclusive interviews.

On several occasions he lashed out at reporters, criticising, and refusing to answer, their questions.

Fox, however, has recently reiterated that under his government, timely information will be easily available to citizens and the media.