New - March 20, 2008
FOI in Practice: Analysis of the Mexican FOI System
Measuring the Complexity of Information Requests and Quality of Government Responses in Mexico
Washington D.C., March 20, 2008 – In celebration of Sunshine Week, the National Security Archive's Mexico Project publishes today a new study of Mexico’s transparency law: "FOI in Practice: Measuring the Complexity of Information Requests and Quality of Government Responses in Mexico."
The study represents the first comprehensive analysis of the Mexican freedom of information law: what information requesters have sought and how the government has responded.
The authors analyzed the quality of government responses in relation to the complexity of FOI requests sent through Mexico’s electronic information system from June 12, 2003 to April 30, 2006. After examining 1,000 information requests and corresponding government responses, the authors concluded that in 76% of the cases the government responses satisfied the requests of the user during the first three years of the law’s existence. Nevertheless, the results also demonstrated that the most complex FOI requests were more difficult for public officials to answer, and received satisfactory responses in only 57% of the cases analyzed.
The findings serve as a warning about Mexico’s need to improve the capacity of government agencies to respond to more complex requests for information as requesters become increasingly sophisticated in their demands over time.
About
the Project
Since 1994, and intensively since 2000, the National
Security Archive's Mexico Project has sought to identify and obtain
the release of documents from secret government archives on United
States and Mexico since 1960, and to disseminate those records through
publications, conferences and the Archive's Web site. In order to
obtain the declassified documents, we use the Freedom of Information
Act to compel U.S. agencies such as the State Department, CIA, Pentagon,
Treasury Department and Justice Department to review and release records
relevant to the project. Since 1994, the Mexico project, under the
direction of Kate Doyle, has filed more than 1,600 U.S. Freedom of
Information requests We carry out ongoing research in U.S. government
holdings--including the National Archives, the presidential libraries,
agency oral history collections, military holdings, and more--as well
as search in Mexican archives such as the Acervo Histórico
Diplomático of the Foreign Relations Secretariate. Since
2002, we have been able to consult a newly-released collection of
Mexican documents on la guerra sucia (the "dirty war") open
to the public in the Archivo General de la Nación in
Mexico City. The Archive directly sparked a national debate about
freedom of information in 1998. On the 30th anniversary of the infamous
Tlatelolco massacre of 1968, the Archive drew press coverage across
Mexico by publishing on the Web and in several major Mexican magazines
a revelatory set of declassified U.S. documents including U.S. embassy
reporting on the massacre and the CIA's analysis of the Mexican security
forces' responsibility. Those newsmaking Tlatelolco documents came
from the Archive's partnership - beginning in July 1994- with the
Mexican newsmagazine Proceso,
to open U.S. files on the past three decades of U.S.-Mexican relations.
Kate Doyle's column in Proceso called Archivos Abiertos (or, Open Archives) was launched in 2003.The series draws from U.S.
and Mexican declassified records on a range of issues that have included,
for example: drug trafficking and counternarcotics policy, Mexican
presidential elections, human rights cases and state repression during
Mexico's "dirty war." Archivos Abiertos was published in
a monthly basis up until April 2004. The column resumed with a
posting on Tlatelolco's Dead (October 1, 2006). The Mexico Project
is actively involved in the movement for freedom of information rights
in Mexico--a struggle which achieved its first success with the enactment
of a landmark freedom of information statute in June 2002. The new
access to information law passed in 2002 represents a vital element
of Mexico's democratic transition. The project also seeks to join
the debate currently underway in Mexico about the country's transition
to democracy--in particular, to support the work of citizens' groups
promoting greater transparency, openness and accountability in government.
To this end, the Archive works closely with scholars, lawyers, freedom
of information activists, NGOs, human rights groups and the press
to design strategies for advancing the people's right to know in Mexico.
Emilene Martínez Morales coordinates our transparency programs.
