The Council of Europe’s Human Rights Steering Committee has agreed to consider objections raised by NGOs to the Council' s draft Convention on Access to Official Documents at its next meeting in March 2008.
A coalition of freedom of information NGOs had claimed victory in November 2007 when a Council of Europe (CoE) steering committee rejected a draft convention on access to information that was said to be deeply flawed. The Justice Initiative, as an observer to a CoE expert working group, provided input on the CoE’s Convention in Access to Official Documents, which, when ratified, will become the world’s first treaty recognizing the public’s general right of access to government-held information. But despite this input, the draft convention had several flaws, including a narrow definition of “official documents” and a weak monitoring mechanism, according to the NGOs.
The NGOs organized opposition to the draft and were rewarded when the CoE’s Human Rights Steering Committee rejected it and scheduled review of the NGOs’ objections at its March 2008 meeting.
Click here to read more: http://www.access-info.org/?id=12.
[source: JusticeInitiative.org]
