It has been a year since the Public Access to Information (PATI) Act was passed in the Bermuda Legislature. A year later, the law has not been put on the books and no commencement date has been given. There is no sign of “freedom of information act” preparation in any part of Government. The PLP [...]
Entries Tagged as 'FOIA'
Whither PATI
March 17th, 2011 · Comments Off · Accountability, Transparency
Premier Alex Scott introduced the idea of “public access to information” (PATI) aka “freedom of information” legislation for Bermuda in 2003. After years of inaction, the project staggered back to life in 2009 and a law was passed by the House of Assembly in 2010. However, the nascent law remains on ice and no timetable [...]
Contracting
November 3rd, 2010 · Comments Off · Bermuda Politics
I am very pleased to hear that Premier Cox has started moves to centralise and professionalise many of Government’s tendering and contracting activities. (See some of my earlier posts on the matter, including Cayman’s solution.) If done properly, this will improve “value for money” and fairness in Government expenditures. It will also reduce the likelihood [...]
Tags:Contracting·FOIA·PATI
PATI Vote
July 23rd, 2010 · Comments Off · Bermuda Politics
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 [...]
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 · Comments Off · 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 · Comments Off · 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 · Comments Off · 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 · Comments Off · 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 · Comments Off · 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 [...]