The Barbados Government of Prime Minister David Thompson yesterday released a draft of their proposed Freedom of Information Act by placing the same in PDF format on the Barbados Government Portal (above).
Here are the first two, and last, paragraphs from the first page…
Barbados Government FOI Draft - First Page
And where have we read those words before? Oh yes, Wikipedia!
Now That We Have Your Attention…
Last January during the last few days of the election, then Opposition Leader David Thompson presented his Integrity Initiatives to the voters, contained in three documents…
1/ “The Ministerial Code – A Proposal”
2/ “A Model Freedom Of Information Law”
3/ “Principles Underlying The Legal Framework For Integrity In Public Life In Barbados”
Barbados Free Press then revealed that the Freedom of Information proposal had been copied verbatim from the World Bank website only a few days beforehand, and that the other two documents had also been largely copied from online sources.
While we questioned the sincerity of Thompson’s last minute conversion to the Church of Integrity, about the copy and paste we said…
“There is nothing wrong with that, my friends. So many countries have implemented Freedom of Information (FoI) and Integrity Laws that much of the standard wordings and concepts have been tested and revised over the years and had all the legal bugs worked out. That’s a good reason for starting with the World Bank version of an FoI – but that is only a start. Presumably a DLP government would carefully consider any changes that should be made to tailor the document for Barbados.”
A Long Road To Get Here – A Longer Road To Come
After David Thompson presented his last-minute quick cut and paste from the internet, promising to implement the Ministerial Code immediately and the other bits within 100 days, the DLP was elected and it was now Prime Minister David Thompson. The promise of a Ministerial Code was tossed aside when his Cabinet balked, and the only time he dealt with conflicts of interest in the first 100 days was, unfortunately, to borrow a business jet owned by a government contractor!
So here we are almost ten months later presented with a draft Freedom of Information Act and – FINALLY – a schedule of public meetings and contact information so citizens can make their views known to the invisible committee that cut and pasted this legislation together.
The “Consultation” Process Finally Revealed – Last Minute, Quick And Dirty
The government just released the draft by posting it on the internet on the 9th. I haven’t seen anything in the papers – and the promised copies to be placed in the post office weren’t there today and probably won’t be tomorrow. There was no press release.
… But the town hall meetings start in five days!
This process could have been revealed months ago. The town hall meetings could have been scheduled months ago. We could have had an ongoing debate in the public forum for the last three months… but nope, the government intends to have all public input wrapped up in three weeks.
Nothing for nine months – no discussion, no website, no contact information for the secret committee – and then, WHAM! The public has five days to obtain, digest, research and comment upon the draft.
It looks suspiciously like the government wants to SAY they had public input, without actually providing citizens with the time, resources or the knowledge to seriously discuss the issues.
Where Are The Holes?
Let us get one thing straight about the DLP Thompson government and integrity legislation: we don’t trust them because so far we have had to drag them kicking and screaming every step of the way. But ok, this is the schedule that has been thrown at us and it is what we must work with.
The danger is this: it is highly likely that the government has carefully crafted the Freedom of Information to leave holes the size of transport trucks. Our job is to find those holes and reveal them to the public before the process goes too far.
In the next few weeks, we will discuss the issues and compare the Barbados draft with FOI legislation in other countries. This draft legislation is only the first step in a process that should build a new legal and cultural foundation to address the corruption that has become endemic in our government.
Please join in the discussion. Our children are depending upon us.
Contact & Public Meeting Information (From the Barbados Government)
The Bill can be accessed online at www.gov.bb. (Download PDF here)
Persons providing electronic feedback should do so at freedomofinfobill@barbados.gov.bb. Copies of the Bill are also being placed at Post Offices islandwide.
Responses to the Bill, whether electronic or hard copy, should be forwarded no later than Friday, 31st October 2008 to:
(i) freedomofinfobill@barbados.gov.bb
or
(ii) Permanent Secretary (Special Assignments)
Prime Minister’s Office Government Headquarters Bay Street St. Michael
or
(iii) Fax Number: 228-8234
The following Town Hall Meetings are also being held in order to provide additional opportunities for persons to provide feedback and inputs.
Wednesday, 15th October 2008 The Combermere School, Waterford, St. Michael
Wednesday, 22nd October 2008 The Alexandra School, Queen Street, St. Peter
Wednesday, 29th October 2008 The Deighton Griffith School, Kingsland, Christ Church
Wednesday, 5th November 2008 The Princess Margaret School, Six Roads, St. Philip
NOTE: Comments are now closed on this article
All previous comments have been transferred to the article: Let’s Discuss Barbados Draft Freedom Of Information Law
26 Comments
October 10, 2008 at 7:27 am
Oh dear!!!
This whole exercise in fundamental democracy looks so insincere and amateurish.
October 10, 2008 at 10:38 am
Don’t we have at UWI Law School with final year students who could participate in this process, hold meetings and make recommendations for the government or do the politicians and bureaucrats want keep a grass roots democracy away from all but the chosen few?
October 10, 2008 at 11:06 am
post it online- no word in the newspapers- town hall meeting in five days- democracy not happening here this important document for many years to come and deserves some respect from DLP which it not showing-ram the law through fast is not the right thing to do
October 10, 2008 at 11:47 am
I have just had a quick look at Wiki’s copyright and they use something called GNU. Too complicated for me, a mere teacher, so all I know is that if any of my students, even primary children, did this, even just a recognisable single phrase, without acknowledging their source, they would have to do something about it. Re-write it, put the references in, whatever.
October 10, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Responses to the Bill, whether electronic or hard copy, should be forwarded no later than Friday, 31st October 2008 to:
(i) freedomofinfobill@barbados.gov.bb
or
(ii) Permanent Secretary (Special Assignments)
Prime Minister’s Office Government Headquarters Bay Street St. Michael
or
(iii) Fax Number: 228-8234
The following Town Hall Meetings are also being held in order to provide additional opportunities for persons to provide feedback and inputs.
Wednesday, 15th October 2008 The Combermere School, Waterford, St. Michael
Wednesday, 22nd October 2008 The Alexandra School, Queen Street, St. Peter
Wednesday, 29th October 2008 The Deighton Griffith School, Kingsland, Christ Church
Wednesday, 5th November 2008 The Princess Margaret School, Six Roads, St. Philip
As we an see from the above there will be adequate opportunity to air your opinions at the meetings to come or by email or fax, so here is your chance to have an input into a newly drafted bill.
The only comments that will count are the ones that are made thru the official channels, as opposed to making them on a site such as this come forward and make a real contribution by attending the Town hall meetings and openly discuss the direction you want to see the draft take, the ball is in your court.
October 10, 2008 at 2:00 pm
189’s bias is showing as he / she makes excuses for a flawed process that is designed to be as little trouble for the “writers” (sorry, “cut and pasters”) of this Freedom of Information bill.
He/she makes a point that we should participate nonetheless and he/she is correct.
BFP printed all the information in the article as to where etc.
189 is wrong about discussing the legislation on the blogs though. We must discuss the legislation everywhere so we can learn and formulate our opinions in an informed manner.
189 wants a “pretend” consultation where the public sits in the chairs and listens to the “experts”. 189, put away your DLP membership card for this discussion. It is for the good of the country.
October 10, 2008 at 2:08 pm
@permres and BFP…
With respect, I think you are raising a false and distracting concern here…
Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU (Gnu’s Not Unix — a recursive definition; a bit of a geek joke)
Free Documentation License. A sister of the GNU Public License (GPL).
It is a “copyleft” license; Free / Open Source; Creative Commons. It is *intended* to allow and encourage copying!!!
The only issue is that the document doesn’t make reference to the license. But since Law is considered to be Public Domain anyway, this is not really a serious issue.
A more serious question: how many of you have actually *read* the proposed Act in its entirety?
********************
BFP says,
Chris, it is not about “plagiarism” and we say that in our article that we expect things to be copied and pasted from the legislation that is out there in the various jurisdictions.
The concerns are that this is a last-minute shove-through process that could have and should have been announced months ago. It, like the copy and paste, shows an attitude and an intent by the government to ram something through without seriously educating the public.
By pointing out the cut and paste, we highlight that this has all been done before in other jurisdictions AND that we must as citizens be wary of the politicians ramming this through with flaws in the legislation that they place there to suit their agendas.
We don’t trust the politicians, and we have a right and good reason to not trust them.
So let’s everybody dig into this proposed legislation and find the flaws.
October 10, 2008 at 2:53 pm
There is a part that needs questioning where essentially a minister may deem ANY document exempt from public scrutiny and keep it that way for as long “they” deem fit, AKA: until further notice/ February 30th/ November 32nd
That is only one perforation in this sieve, mind you!
October 10, 2008 at 2:54 pm
BFP says,
Chris, it is not about “plagiarism” and we say that in our article that we expect things to be copied and pasted from the legislation that is out there in the various jurisdictions.
The concerns are that this is a last-minute shove-through process that could have and should have been announced months ago. It, like the copy and paste, shows an attitude and an intent by the government to ram something through without seriously educating the public.
By pointing out the cut and paste, we highlight that this has all been done before in other jurisdictions AND that we must as citizens be wary of the politicians ramming this through with flaws in the legislation that they place there to suit their agendas.
We don’t trust the politicians, and we have a right and good reason to not trust them.
So let’s everybody dig into this proposed legislation and find the flaws.
October 10, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Good find Ian!
Is this provision in the legislation of other countries? Is it there but perhaps there is an appeal process… or is a minister allowed to hide anything they want to for as long as they want to? And does that ability exist after the minister is voted from office or the government falls?
We must dig deeper.
October 10, 2008 at 2:59 pm
You would think that they would compose a few paragraphs themselves to introduce their legislation, but they cut and paste from Wikipedia!
How much did we pay for this document?
There’s a question: how much did the cut and pasting cost us?
October 10, 2008 at 3:09 pm
BFP I expect that you will be attending all the Town Hall meetings.
I expect that BFP and all of you that are complaining and criticising will post your “revisions” additions,recomendations on this blog.
@ Ian Bourne,
“may deem ANY document exempt from public scrutiny and keep.”
Good point.
This may be necessary in case it is a document that involves serious threat to the security of the country or other countries.
The legal gurus on here should comment.
Ian Bourne keep questioning. This is a democracy.
The rest of you step up or shut up.
BFP you should leave this topic at the top of the page
October 10, 2008 at 3:11 pm
BFP you should produce a FIA print Edition with the recommendations of your bloggers.
October 10, 2008 at 3:14 pm
BTW: “189″ (probably WIV) is right – everyone should attend these Town Hall and the Internet seems the way to get folks to attend, I intend to attend the Town Hall at Combermere on the 15th, by then I should have read the document in full and picked out most of the other crevasses where a camel can pass
All right thinking Blogs should publicise and emphasise these Town Halls, I’ll do so as my top entry for Saturday
October 10, 2008 at 3:19 pm
@BFP et al…
While I encourage paranoia, it can also be taken too far…
Yes, this has been cut-and-pasted. But you know what? IMHO, good!!!
Law is simply software. And it is well known in the software industry that it better to reuse and extend existing code than developing from scratch.
I personally have read the entire document, and as I said over on BU, the code looks reasonable. A few bits need to be debugged, but overall this is workable.
Bourne raises the issue of a Minister being able to define a document as exempt, but there is recourse through the Ombudsman. Further, take a look at Part III “Information Commissioner and Employees, Etc.” Herein it is very clear that the Commissioner is to be independent.
Again, I agree this language has been copied from elsewhere. But, again, this is (IMHO) a good thing — as in, there’s not been time to introduce traps and loopholes (at least, not that I’ve seen myself; yet).
(As an aside, it would be worthwhile finding out what is the base document, so we can compare and determine exactly what has been changed. This would point out potential “gotchas”.)
It is *our* responsibility to apply extensive due diligence here. But let’s not let the ill-defined “boogy men” make us irrationally untrusting…
The real test (using the legal meaning of “test”) will be when this Act is enacted, and the requests start being made. And then some will be denied. And then the reviews (and possibly, suits) begin…
May we live in interesting times…
October 10, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Chris Halsall, without BFP there would be no draft legislation being proffered by this government. Without BFP it is possible that Owen Arthur might still be the PM.
BFP warns that this is being shoved through without giving the public copies of the bill to study. I think that is important.
BFP warns that the media has so far ignored this draft and that the government didn’t put out a press release when they posted the draft on line. I think that is important.
We are discussing the draft online but no one in the media is discussing it. I think that is important.
BFP provides wise counsel when it says we must be suspicious and watch for government agendas.
October 10, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Has anyone noticed that the maximum fine is only $20,000???!!!
So you can steal millions of dollars in cash and supplies, or be involved in unethical activity, or receive irregular gifts and perquisites, and only at a cost of $20,000 or less.
Speak about no deterrent to committing acts of abuse.
It will be a deterrent to those small-sum clerks who get caught and dragged through the system.
October 10, 2008 at 3:36 pm
.147 has a good point. The words “integrity legislation”, “freedom of information”, “transparency” and “conflicts of interest” were not part of the public discussion until BFP started pushing. Those words were never heard before the blogs.
147 makes another good point. I agree that you’d think the people who put this together would think more of their work than using an introduction cut and pasted from Wikipedia!
October 10, 2008 at 3:37 pm
@.147…
I agree with you completely that BFP, BU, and the other Bajan Blogs are changing the landscape of governance in Barbados in, generally, a positive manner.
And I also agree that it is *very* interesting that there was absolutely no mention of this in the “dead-tree media”.
Open dialogue is critical.
However, that doesn’t mean I’m always going to agree with every position BFP, or anyone else, takes.
All I am saying is, *we* have an opportunity here. Let’s get to it!!!
October 10, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Quoting Chris Halsall
“Bourne raises the issue of a Minister being able to define a document as exempt, but there is recourse through the Ombudsman”
Let’s hope Government appoints an Ombudsman soon as the Government’s website says that the post is “vacant”. I belive that has been the case for quite a while. Anyone remember how long?
October 10, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Quoting Chris Halsall
“Bourne raises the issue of a Minister being able to define a document as exempt, but there is recourse through the Ombudsman”
Let’s hope Government appoints an Ombudsman soon as the Government’s website says that the post is “vacant”. I belive that has been the case for quite a while. Anyone remember how long?
October 10, 2008 at 4:09 pm
@Beefcake: “So you can steal millions of dollars in cash and supplies, or be involved in unethical activity, or receive irregular gifts and perquisites, and only at a cost of $20,000 or less.”
With respect, you are confusing the issue here…
The $20,000 fine is for failing “to comply with provisions of sections 15, 16 and 17″ of the proposed Act.
Corruption, and the penalties for same, is not this Act’s purview…
*PLEASE*, read and understand the language!!!
October 10, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Waterboy: “Let’s hope Government appoints an Ombudsman soon as the Government’s website says that the post is “vacant”. I belive that has been the case for quite a while. Anyone remember how long?”
There are *many* positions which are going to have to be filled for this proposed FOI Act to function.
One would hope that the Ombudsman would be one of them. And if not, then I’d be the first to support BFP’s call to explain why it hasn’t been done…
October 10, 2008 at 4:27 pm
It is imperative that the journalists be involved in this exercise to make the Act the best that it can be.
October 10, 2008 at 4:48 pm
“Let’s hope Government appoints an Ombudsman soon as the Government’s website says that the post is “vacant”. I belive that has been the case for quite a while. Anyone remember how long?”
This is a very small country which specializes in secrecy, tribal politics and special interests. Our ombudsman has been traditionally toothless and neutered. Like the three monkeys that see, hear and speak no evil, it is a fundamental flaw to have government appoint the ombudsman.
If the government is serious, about FOI, ITAL and peoples rights etc., the ombusman should be appointed by an independent world agency with the right and obligation to post his or her findings on all forms of media on a regular basis. To do anything less would be a complete sham and an exercise in the world of pretend.
October 10, 2008 at 5:39 pm
The BLP just broadcast a political message on VOB.
They are blaming the DLP for the problems being experienced in Barbados.
Earth to BLP. YOU LOST.
It is a little early to start campaigning.
Forensic audits ain dun yet.
Comments are closed.