About Commissioners
About Commissioners One could not argue that Freedom of information laws are only as good as the response mechanisms bui...
ICIC Conferences
ICIC Conferences 7th International Conference of Information Commissioners Ottawa, Ontario , October 3-5, 2011&nb...;
National FOI Legislation
National FOI Legislation Freedom of information has been developing steadily as a human right since the year 2000. More than ...

Latest Information Commissioners' News

UK: Supreme Court Ruling on Council Pay Data

UK: Supreme Court Ruling on Council Pay Data

Below you can read a press release from the Scottish Information Commissioner regarding the publicity of Council pay data. Commissioner welcomes Supreme Court ruling on Council...

FOIAnet: Global Right to Information Update: An Analysis by Region

FOIAnet: Global Right to Information Update: An Analysis by Region

8 July 2013- Today, the Freedom of Information Advocates Network (FOIAnet) launched a major global analysis of the development of the right to information (RTI) movement, broken...

Centre for Freedom of Information: First international survey of Information Commissioners shows concern over increased appeals and reduced resources

Centre for Freedom of Information: First international survey of Information Commissioners shows concern over increased appeals and reduced resources

8th April 2013 First international survey of Information Commissioners shows concern over increased appeals and reduced resources.    The first international...

Public trust in the Information Commissioner highest among supervisory institutions in Slovenia

Public trust in the Information Commissioner highest among supervisory institutions in Slovenia

The January public opinion poll “Politbarometer”, performed by the Slovenian Public Opinion and Mass Communication Research Centre, confirmed a traditionally high trust in the...

Ombudsmen on freedom of information

Ombudsmen on freedom of information

At the 10th World Conference of the International Ombudsman Institute several sessions on freedom of information were held. Below you can see a selection of sessions in which...

Freedom of Information

One could not argue that Freedom of information laws are only as good as the response mechanisms built into the laws themselves, and as good as the efficiency of the appeal procedures. If citizens cannot take an action to enforce their right of access being “shy” of filing a suit, or do not have enough financial resources to do that, FOI laws cannot serve as an active “pushing” system for more transparent government.
Therefore, in order to ensure a culture of openness and to give citizens a right to access to information, adequate and effective appeal mechanisms must be in place. However, common for all types of appeals is that no enforcement mechanism can make public administrations accountable for lack of openness if they are not willing to abide by the recommendations or decisions made to them.

There are five systems of second-instance (appeal) decision-making when dealing with access to public information:

  • Appeal before the body which denied access to a document,
  • Higher Administrative bodies,
  • Court as an appeal body (directly) after the first level decision,
  • Ombudsman as a mediator,
  • Information Commissioner or Commission

Members of Information Commissioners' "community" are commissioners and ombudsmen.

28 September - INTERNATIONAL RIGHT TO KNOW DAY!

BE COURIOUS ... all year!

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For ICs Only

FOI Quotes

"Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” -- Louis D.…

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