(PERIODISTAS/IFEX) – The daily “La Voz del Interior”, based in Córdoba province, has criticised the provincial public service regulatory body (Ente Regulador de los Servicios Públicos provincial, ERSEP) for arbitrarily delaying access to the minutes of its board of directors’ meetings. The daily had requested the information in connection with an investigation it is carrying […]
(PERIODISTAS/IFEX) – The daily “La Voz del Interior”, based in Córdoba province, has criticised the provincial public service regulatory body (Ente Regulador de los Servicios Públicos provincial, ERSEP) for arbitrarily delaying access to the minutes of its board of directors’ meetings. The daily had requested the information in connection with an investigation it is carrying out into alleged irregularities at ERSEP.
Marcela Fernández, a “La Voz del Interior” journalist, is conducting an investigation into nitrate contamination of the water supply in 13 neighbourhoods in the city of Córdoba. On 14 May 2004, the journalist went to ERSEP’s offices to ask for the minutes from board meetings held since August 2003. Fernández was trying to verify whether allegations that ERSEP was aware of the contamination for months and had failed to take any action were true.
The officials who spoke to Fernández told her they were not authorised to hand over the documents. A notary public acting for the daily then made an official report, documenting the negative response the daily had received.
ERSEP’s legal and technical advisor, Mónica Sanguinetti, said the board’s meeting minutes were not public documents and that acquiescing to the daily’s request would open the door to thousands of people also asking for the documents, which the organisation would not be able to handle. PERIODISTAS believes that Sanguinetti’s response calls into question the access to information law passed by the current government in October 1999. In essence, she said “legislative principles that may impede or seriously hinder the functioning (of an organisation), may be unconstitutional.”
After the daily made a number of attempts to obtain the information, on 27 May ERSEP rejected the request and redirected it to the State Public Prosecutor’s Office. On 7 June, the Public Prosecutor’s Office ruled that the public should have access to the board’s meeting minutes, but that the daily needed to specify which documents it required and for what reason. This ruling was issued despite the fact that Law 8803, on access to government entities’ meeting minutes, establishes that the party requesting the information does not have to specify a reason.
Since 2001, a group of non-governmental organisations, including PERIODISTAS, have been promoting a bill on access to information that has already received some support from the lower chamber of deputies. The Executive also passed Decree 1172/03, which guarantees access to meeting minutes of entities under its direction and to information in its power.
