Overview 86 FOIA countries

BRUSSELS - 22 SEPTEMBER 2008 - An improved version of the 2008 Overview of all FOIA Countries for the 2008 Right to Know Day by Roger Vleugels.
 
In 86 countries a FOIA is in power

• The growth of the number of FOIA countries is since the turn of the century about six per year.
• Six of the 86 countries on the list are not fully independent countries, but do have a FOIA and a legal system of their own. So for requesters there are 86 different FOIAs and from a formal perspective there are 80 countries.
• Most countries in Europe and both Americas have FOIAs by now. In Europe some do not have a FOIA [like Luxemburg], some have poor laws [like Italy], some have poor practices [like in most Latin-Roman and in some Balkan countries] and some have good practices [like in the UK, Estonia and some Balkan countries].
• In Africa, Asia and Oceania the number of countries with a FOIA is small but there are hopeful signs
• n this overview an attempt to present the number of requests per country. A poor attempt: there are almost no data and most of them are not detailed enough. A complication besides that: there is an almost complete absence of definitions and of context.

For instance there is no reliable information on the [pro-]active transparency rates in countries, needed to be able to compare countries. Needed to assess the need to file requests. These problems are addressed in a clarification section in the overview.

• In spite of those problems it is possible to give a first impression about the numbers of requests per country. It is an impression in extremes. There are countries in which the FOIA is used frequently: several dozen up to a few hundred requests per 100,000 inhabitants per year; countries like US, Bulgaria and UK or Croatia. In a substantial group of countries the FOIA is almost not used: less than 1 per 100,000 per year, countries like France, Italy and Spain. Between these two extremes The Netherlands: 6 per 100,000.
• In this overview a very first attempt to present the success rate per country. This attempt is a real experiment and published to start debate.

The Netherlands

• The number of requests filed in my country is, as always, modest. In clear text: too small. The Netherlands was the 8th country with a FOIA, the Wob. This law is an integrated investigative tool for journalists, researchers, private persons and NGOs. The disclosure rate is about average compared to Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon countries. Every month there are one or more major press publications on new disclosures. In other words there is a small but successful practice.
• The reasons for the small number of requests are typical Dutch, mainly our Calvinistic streak, the consensus model and recently the more and more imperious style of the cabinets and a decline in investigative journalism.
• In spite of all this sadness there are hopeful signs. The number of requests tends to grow. The last figure, 1,000 in 2005, is produced by the law department of the University of Tilburg. My estimate is that the number for 2008 will be about 1,200. More important: this year there were substantial disclosures. Even absolute exemptions could not stop them. Some disclosures were so important that the state police had to start investigations [for instance into unaccounted expenses of the Royal Family] Several ad hoc state task forces had to be installed to clear the mess disclosed after Wob requests.
   

See here the complete overview (doc, 142 KB) by Roger Vleugels.