President Cortizo justifies 10-year restricted public access to Cabinet minutes
On August 20, Resolution 71 entered into force, which establishes as restricted access information minutes, notes and other records of activities of the Cabinet Council.
Given the questions that continue to arise after various documents, notes and minutes of the Cabinet Council and of the President or Vice President of the Republic were established as restricted access information, the President of the Republic, Laurentino Cortizo, justified that this is contemplated in the Transparency Law.
“This type of exceptions is contemplated in Law 6, there it has a specific article that contemplates having a certain reservation, especially in some issues of the Cabinet Council, for example issues related to a bond issue, that is an extremely important issue because we cannot We advise those interested in the issue of a bond issue that we will be issuing bonds at a certain time or on a certain day,” Cortizo said.
The president added that there are also other issues or decisions that can be made in relation to security, which should also be reserved.
It is worth mentioning that on August 20, Resolution 71 of August 4, 2021 came into effect , through which the minutes, notes, files and other records or records of the discussions or activities of the Cabinet Council, the president or vice president of the Republic and the secretary of the Cabinet Council.
Exempted from this measure are those minutes corresponding to discussions or activities related to contract approvals.
Faced with this, multiple questions arose, such is the case of Transparency International (TI) that emphasized that "the decision of the Ministry of the Presidency, to hide, by means of a Resolution, after the exception of the Transparency Law and to keep secret the records of the Cabinet Council, it is inconvenient, not very transparent, untimely, it exacerbates the crisis of citizen mistrust and is morally incorrect," he said in a statement.
At the same time it demanded "the immediate transparency of all documents related to public goods and resources of the State, in addition to once again urging the Comptroller General of the Republic and other control authorities to fulfill their role as a counterweight to the executive power." .
For his part, the deputy of the independent bench, Gabriel Silva, presented to the Plenary of the National Assembly a bill through which he seeks to modify Law 6 of 2002 on Transparency; which consists of two articles, the first has the purpose of eliminating Numeral 8 of Article 14 of Law 6, which allows the minutes, notes, files and other records or records of the discussions or activities of the Council to be declared of restricted access Cabinet and others; while the second article establishes that such information be declared of public order and of social interest, with which it is sought that "this Resolution is disqualified, that is to say that this bill may also be considered retroactively."
Likewise, Deputy Mayín Corre, announced that she will present a draft bill to lower the term in which information must or may be restricted to five years, so that at the end of the term of each president, he or she will be held accountable for the restricted information.
“This type of exceptions is contemplated in Law 6, there it has a specific article that contemplates having a certain reservation, especially in some issues of the Cabinet Council, for example issues related to a bond issue, that is an extremely important issue because we cannot We advise those interested in the issue of a bond issue that we will be issuing bonds at a certain time or on a certain day,” Cortizo said.
The president added that there are also other issues or decisions that can be made in relation to security, which should also be reserved.
It is worth mentioning that on August 20, Resolution 71 of August 4, 2021 came into effect , through which the minutes, notes, files and other records or records of the discussions or activities of the Cabinet Council, the president or vice president of the Republic and the secretary of the Cabinet Council.
Exempted from this measure are those minutes corresponding to discussions or activities related to contract approvals.
Faced with this, multiple questions arose, such is the case of Transparency International (TI) that emphasized that "the decision of the Ministry of the Presidency, to hide, by means of a Resolution, after the exception of the Transparency Law and to keep secret the records of the Cabinet Council, it is inconvenient, not very transparent, untimely, it exacerbates the crisis of citizen mistrust and is morally incorrect," he said in a statement.
At the same time it demanded "the immediate transparency of all documents related to public goods and resources of the State, in addition to once again urging the Comptroller General of the Republic and other control authorities to fulfill their role as a counterweight to the executive power." .
For his part, the deputy of the independent bench, Gabriel Silva, presented to the Plenary of the National Assembly a bill through which he seeks to modify Law 6 of 2002 on Transparency; which consists of two articles, the first has the purpose of eliminating Numeral 8 of Article 14 of Law 6, which allows the minutes, notes, files and other records or records of the discussions or activities of the Council to be declared of restricted access Cabinet and others; while the second article establishes that such information be declared of public order and of social interest, with which it is sought that "this Resolution is disqualified, that is to say that this bill may also be considered retroactively."
Likewise, Deputy Mayín Corre, announced that she will present a draft bill to lower the term in which information must or may be restricted to five years, so that at the end of the term of each president, he or she will be held accountable for the restricted information.