Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

MEXICO: Transparency Law – a Vaccine Against Corruption

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Jun 12 2003 (IPS) - The Mexican government’s traditional culture of secrecy was dealt a direct blow Thursday when a new ”transparency law” making information available to the public, which observers say will also act as a vaccine against corruption, went fully into effect.

Any Mexican citizen can now request information from the executive, judicial and legislative branches on how a contract was awarded through a competitive tender, what a specific government official earns, or how budget funds have been used – something that was impossible in the past.

The new Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information, which was enacted a year ago, went fully into effect Thursday, with the implementation of the new regulations and the opening of the Federal Institute of Access to Information (IFAI), an independent body.

The law, which was the result of an agreement between the government of Vicente Fox and parliament, ”is a far-reaching reform that will have an impact on Mexican society’s entire nervous system,” political scientist Sergio Aguayo commented to IPS.

In Mexico, which ranked 57th last year out of 72 countries which the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International covers in its ”corruption perceptions index”, access to public information was blocked during the 1929-2000 reign of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Under the PRI, the citizenry was not accustomed to demanding explanations or holding authorities accountable, and when they did, they faced the risk of repression. Political analysts said graft was so widespread and accepted that it was like the oil that greased the wheels of the country’s institutions, allowing them to function smoothly.

The non-governmental Mexican Association of Studies for Defence of the Consumer said corruption cost consumers the equivalent of 20 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Although bribery and kickbacks remain common, there is a new climate today, as well as instruments like the transparency law to more readily combat the phenomenon, said Aguayo.

Fox, the first non-PRI president in seven decades, has been waving the banner of the fight against corruption, for which he holds the PRI responsible. He promoted the new law as part of an effort to show that he is clamping down on graft, and in response to loud demands by political groupings and civil society.

Public access to information is an instrument for advancing democracy and the best way to fight corruption, said Interior Secretary Santiago Creel.

Informed observers agree ”that today marks a truly important moment in Mexico’s democratic transition process,” said Manuel Carbonell with the Institute of Legal Research at the public Autonomous National University of Mexico.

But Carbonell, like other analysts, is not completely satisfied with the new law, under which information can be denied to the public on security grounds.

He pointed out that the Supreme Court had inserted limitations on public access to information, by deciding that a Court commission will have the final say on which documents can be made available to the public.

But if an individual does not obtain the information requested from any area of the state – with the exception of the judiciary – they can turn to IFAI, which will have 20 days to study the case and issue a verdict.

If the petitioner is still unsatisified, they can turn to the Supreme Court to demand a review of the case.

Aguayo believes tough times lie ahead for Mexico’s bureaucracy, because ”it is not prepared, either organisationally or mentally, to turn over information that it has guarded as if it were its own property.”

Since Mexico ”comes from a tradition of non-transparency, there will be the temptation on many levels of the state to declare much information ‘in reserve’,” said IFAI chairwoman María Marván.

But in order to keep public information ”in reserve,” the government agencies or officials concerned must base their arguments on legal principles and clearly explain the damages that would be caused if the information were revealed. According to Marván, that severely limits the possibility of withholding information from the public.

This week, all of the main agencies and bodies of the state opened special offices and web sites to attend to requests for information.

According to the regulations created under the new law, every public entity with a web site is required to publish on-line all draft laws, regulations, decrees, competitive tenders, and other administrative measures 20 days before they go into effect or are submitted to the president to sign.

In Aguayo’s view, government officials and political parties, which are considered entities of public law and public interest in Mexico, ”will feel the greatest resentment over the consequences of this monumental leap from dearth to abundance of information.”

The implementation of the new law ”will crack open the culture of secrecy on which a large part of the relationship between government leaders and the governed is based in Mexico,” asserted Miguel Granados, a columnist who writes in the daily Reforma.