In March 2006, the Open Society Justice Initiative and four other organizations filed a brief with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights seeking to establish that the American Convention on Human Rights guarantees a right of access to information held by public bodies. The case, Marcel Claude Reyes and Others v. Chile, marks the Inter-American Court’s first opportunity in its 27-year history to rule on the right of access to government-held information. The Justice Initiative, ARTICLE 19; Libertad de Información Mexico, Asociación Civil (LIMAC); Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS) of Peru; and Access Info Europe—filed the “friend of the court” brief in support of Claude Reyes and his two co-applicants. The brief, available at http://www.justiceinitiative.org, surveys access to information laws and jurisprudence and argues that a fundamental right of people to access information held by their governments has been established internationally and is contained in the American Convention on Human Rights.(Original source: http://www.justiceinitiative.org/db/resource2?res_id=103162)
