The Right to Information System in Brazil: Tensions between Transparency and Control of Information

Marcio Camargo Cunha Filho

doi:10.5771/0506-7286-2017-4-412

Contents
- Chapter Expand | CollapseAuthorsPage
- 329–331 Titelei/Inhaltsverzeichnis 329–331
- 332–434 Abhandlungen / Articles 332–434
  - 332–366 Access to Information as a Human Right and Constitutional Guarantee. A Comparative Perspective Michael Riegner Michael Riegner 332–366
  - 367–389 Access to Information and Constitutional Accountability: Ruffling Feathers in South Africa Richard Calland Richard Calland 367–389
  - 390–411 State Transparency after the Neoliberal Turn: The Politics, Limits, and Paradoxes of India’s Right to Information Law Aradhana Sharma Aradhana Sharma 390–411
  - 412–434 The Right to Information System in Brazil: Tensions between Transparency and Control of Information Marcio Camargo Cunha Filho Marcio Camargo Cunha Filho 412–434
- 435–450 Berichte / Reports 435–450
  - Access to Environmental Information in the Context of Development Activities in the Legal Framework of Cameroon Jean-Claude N. Ashukem Jean-Claude N. Ashukem
- 451–464 Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews 451–464
- 465–478 Bibliographie / Bibliography 465–478
  - 465–465 RECHT UND ENTWICKLUNG ALLGEMEIN / LAW AND DEVELOPMENT IN GENERAL 465–465
  - 465–469 AFRIKA /AFRICA 465–469
  - 469–471 ASIEN /ASIA 469–471
  - 471–474 LATEINAMERIKA / LATIN AMERICA 471–474
  - 474–478 NAHER UND MITTLERER OSTEN / NEAR AND MIDDLE EAST 474–478
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VRÜ Verfassung und Recht in Übersee , page 412 - 434

The Right to Information System in Brazil: Tensions between Transparency and Control of Information

Autoren

Marcio Camargo Cunha Filho

DOI
- doi.org/10.5771/0506-7286-2017-4-412
- ISSN: 0506-7286
- ISSN online: 2941-9603
Abstract

Right to Information (RTI) laws are commonly seen as key elements of participatory democracies because they allow citizens to hold public officials accountable for their actions. Nevertheless, these laws can be ambiguous since, while creating transparency provisions, they also limit their scope, preventing fundamental change in the power balance between state and civil society. In Brazil, this ambiguity is reinforced by three mechanisms of control created by the RTI normative framework: the structure of the procedure of information access, which attributes decision-making power to high-level political appointees; the procedural requirements for information requests, whose vagueness empowers bureaucrats to define their concrete meaning; and the substantive exceptions to the transparency rule, which create an asymmetry of power between the citizen requesting information and state agencies responding to it. My main goal is to analyze the tensions between control of information and transparency that emerge from the operation of this normative framework by the two administrative appellate agencies of Brazil’s executive branch -the Office of the Comptroller General (Ministério da Transparência e Controladoria-Geral da União - CGU) and the Interagency Commission of Information Reassessment (Comissão Mista de Reavaliação de Informações - CMRI). I argue that the CGU has exerted pressure towards transparency in several occasions, tensioning the provisions that allow the withholding of information and thus promoting a gradual, incremental and nonlinear advancement of transparency. I also argue that an additional difficulty for the system to promote transparency is the relative absence of Supreme Court. Had it been more activated, it could theoretically impose more limits to the power to withhold information. I conclude by suggesting that progress towards transparency does not necessarily rest on legal provisions, but perhaps on the existence of an autonomous and qualified bureaucracy that functions as a force that occasionally manages to push the system towards transparency.
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