Bermuda’s long-awaited Public Access to Information (PATI) Act has been moved onto the Parliamentary schedule for debate today (presumably as a counterweight to the very unpopular municipalities takeover law also being debated). It is assumed that it will be broadly supported. But the beauty is in the details. The PATI law does not dictate an [...]
Entries Tagged as 'FOIA'
Priorities
July 16th, 2010 · Comments Off · Accountability, Bermuda Politics
The PLP dropped the municipalities takeover as a bombshell late in Dr. Brown’s term. Many questions were raised about the huge sums allocated to law firms for the reform effort … yet there has been little visible evidence of consultation nor talk of reform. One has to wonder if this is about reform at all. [...]
After PATI
June 29th, 2010 · No Comments · Accountability, Transparency
The long wait for Bermuda’s public access to information law continues. The NYT has an interesting article on India’s popular freedom of information access law pointing out that it may not have made a big dent in corruption, but it has given a powerful tool to citizens to resolve their complaints. There is, however, a [...]
Invisible PATI
May 14th, 2010 · No Comments · Bermuda Politics
It’s been going on five years that Bermuda has talked about introducing Public Access to Information (PATI), our local flavour of a freedom of information act. And it seems that we may be on the home stretch, as Dr. Brown tabled the draft bill in the House of Assembly last week. It will be voted [...]
Tags:FOIA·freedom of information access·PATI·public access to information
Bermudironic 2
May 7th, 2010 · No Comments · Accountability, Transparency
The Premier made a statement in Parliament this morning about the introduction of the PATI (public access to information) law. UBP MP John Barritt then posed a question about several outstanding Parliamentary Questions that Government has so far chosen to ignore, relating to the controversial expansion of the Stonington/Coco Reef lease as well as the [...]
Parliament Online
April 14th, 2010 · No Comments · Transparency
We have had more promises of online information services for the House of Assembly, including a proper Hansard, schedules, parliamentary questions and sometimes answers, draft bills, etc. The sooner the better. For those interested, here are two successful examples of searchable parliamentary sites from the open source software world. They do much to provide insight [...]
PATI
March 11th, 2010 · No Comments · Accountability, Transparency
Dr. Brown has again promised that PATI (freedom of information) legislation will be tabled before the House of Assembly this year. Let’s hope it incorporates the substantial feedback that was provided by both Bermudians and international experts in public access laws. Meanwhile, the Cayman Islands Information Commissioner has launched a new website on their PATI [...]
Government Injunction Against the Media
December 16th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Media
The PLP and the Bermuda Government like to talk about their commitment to transparency and freedom of the press. But their actions undercut their claims. Bermudians woke up today (with the gunshots still ringing in their ears) to a daily newspaper that was also shot full of holes. It appears that the Royal Gazette was [...]
Tags:FOIA·PATI·Press Freedom
PATI Retroactivity
December 4th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Accountability, Transparency
The Premier has taken an about-face on the issue of PATI retroactivity, commenting: “I wish to advise this honourable House that when I invite Cabinet’s further consideration of the bill it will contain a recommendation that it consider the issue of retroactivity. Personally, I wish it to be clearly understood that I am in favour [...]
Deliberate Distortion of Reality
December 1st, 2009 · Comments Off · Accountability, Transparency
Senator Walton Brown is all over the news and talk radio decrying the public complaints about weaknesses in the draft PATI law as a “deliberate distortion of reality”. He went on to describe how the section to allow the Minister to amend the PATI law by regulation was only intended to simplify updates to the [...]