Many jurisdictions take transparency so seriously that they have both freedom of information laws that cover data in the possession of Government and open meeting laws that require all deliberations of public bodies to be announced in advance and be open to the public.
There are so many examples at the city, state, country, and multinational organisation levels. Here are a few from Texas and other US states.
There is a tendency for governmental officials to prefer closed meetings to open ones. It is more convenient to meet in private, rather than in public. Political agendas bring along the desire to decide things informally and only “ratify” things in public.
Bermuda’s governance laws are obsolete, dating back to the time of “small government” of our little island. Those days are long gone. We now have a large public sector – from both a headcount and dollar view – and it’s still growing. It’s time for reform.
PLP Senator Walton Brown recently opined that PATI was important but there were other more important issues to be dealt with first. He’s wrong – PATI and sunshine laws will help Government do all the other important things better!
If a Tree Falls in the Forest // Mar 4, 2008 at 11:30 am
[...] to the public. The US has had a federal SunShine Act since 1976 that enforces this (in addition most states have similar laws at the local [...]