Law of Access to the Public Information

After the scandals of corruption of ex- presidents Arnoldo Alemán and Enrique Bolaños, the new government of the commander Daniel Ortega must promote before the National Assembly the approval of the Law of Access to the Public Information, by the good of his government, us the journalists and the citizenship in general.

The No.1 article of the law intends to guarantee and to regulate the exercise of the right to the public, existing information in documents, archives and data bases of the institutions of the State, the mixed societies and the subsidized ones by the State, as well as the private organizations that administer, handle to resources public or are concessionary of services public.

This initiative of law was presented/displayed to the First Secretariat of the National Assembly the seven of November of 2003 and was consensuada by more than fourteen organizations of the civil society and the State; the ex- Commission of Justice and Governability of the National Assembly gave a favorable opinion in a 85 percent. “Taking into account that the present project of law is necessary, well it is based and one is not against the Political Constitution, Constitutional Laws, nor to treaties ratified by the Nicaraguan State, the Commission of justice considers favorable the project of Law of Access to the Public Information and recommends to plenary its approval”
In this same year, the Violet Foundation Chamorro made a survey financed by the Embassy of Finland, the one that revealed that the 89,3 percent of the Nicaraguan population thinks that the institutional transparency happens through the urgent necessity to approve a Law of Access to the Public Information.

According to Mauricio Zúñiga, Director of the Institute for the Development and the Democracy (Ipade), “the law is an instrument that comes to fortify the democracy and to make more transparency the Public management”.

Taking into account that the State of Nicaragua consists of four powers: The Legislative Power (National Assembly), the Judicial Power (Supreme Court of Justice), the Electoral Power (Electoral Advice Supreme) and the Executive authority, that conform, in addition to the President, the Vice-president and the Cabinet of Government (Cabinet), the National Council of Economic-Social Planning, presidential, advisory secretaries, 11 decentralized beings, like the Contraloría of the Republic, Supervision of Banks, Supervision of Pensions, Public Ministry, Nicaraguan Institute of Energy, Office of the judge advocate general of Human rights, universities, among others. Also 13 public companies, 12 Ministries with 14 decentralized beings and eight companies, the local governments comprise: regional governments of the Caribbean Coast and municipal governments. To this 80 thousand employees are due to add public whom the salient government of Enrique has Bolaños.

With as much bureaucracy in the State it is very easy that any government official falls in the temptation to commit corruption acts. The sociologist Oscar René Vargas defines the corruption like corrupting, to introduce vices in the nature of the things, when he is related to the money and the economy, takes place the corrupt use of the power, associated to the advantage of the authority position to obtain gains you bid.

On the other hand, doctor Mountain Alexander Boiler, jurist and philosopher, express that “the Law of Access to the Public Information restitutes the sense of the democracy, because gives to be able to the citizen”.

We can indicate that in many countries illicit acts are committed to newspaper, for example; the Honduran Police arrested to the ex- mayor and present councilman of San Pedro de Sula, Oscar Kilgore, to embezzle of the public assets about 600,000 dollars during its administration between 2002 and 2006. Also it is accused to him of violation, abuse of office of the duties of the civil employees and document falsification public.

In Nicaragua, in December just international past, organisms (Organization of the American States) and nationals (Ethical and Transparency) presented a report that detailed the advances of Nicaragua as far as the fulfillment of the dispositions of the Inter-American Convention against the Corruption, “have analyzed the forms in which in Nicaragua the so important legal instrument for the fight against the corruption has been implemented: nepotism, peculado, money laundering and other crimes that can be generated in the State”.

According to data of the World Bank, they exist more than forty countries in the world that count on laws and institutions that guarantee the transparency and access to the information on the public management. Between these nations we can emphasize Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Jamaica and Ecuador.

If the new government manages to approve this law he will demonstrate that he will be a strong government, solid and able, since all population will be able to have right to inquire on the different aspects from the economy (micro and macro), imports and exports, censuses population, treated and agreements about cooperation, etc., by its own account, visiting the offices that each ministry, independent being, regional and local government arrange to that function.