Notes of the Freedom of Information Act workshop.

From: OMDEEP GOKHOOL <omdeep.gokhool1_at_umail.uom.ac.mu>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2015 22:30:13 +0400

Hello Shelly

I attended the workshop on Freedom of Information Act as a representative
of the Mauritius Internet Users. Here are the notes and my experience of
the workshop.

The workshop started by a welcoming speech and a quick introduction of all
the participants. Ms Corinna have an introduction on the Freedom of
Information (FOI) and talked also about the history of FOI.

She then moved on the topic " What does a Freedom of Information Act looks
like and how will it work". She described the components of the FOI Law
which consists of :

   1. Requests process and deadlines
   2. Appeal of process
   3. Exceptions to release
   4. Government Roles and Responsibilities
   5. Record Management
   6. Training
   7. Reporting

Ms Corinna then explained "What is the FOI Process?" . She mentioned the
followings:

   1. Filing and Receiving a request
   2. Producing the request
   3. Review for public and non public information
   4. Government response
   5. Appeal and deadlines
   6. Disputes

The exceptions to release information were identified as listed below:

   1. Personal Information
   2. National Security
   3. Economic Information
   4. Trade Secrets and commercial interests
   5. Medical and Educational Record
   6. Law enforcement Information

Freedom of Information will bring a culture change and everybody has their
role to play, however there will be main players who were identified as
follows:

   1. Information Commissioner or ombudsman
   2. Ministers
   3. Information offices and Civil Services
   4. Requesters
   5. Civil society

Ms Corinna mentioned also about "Archives and Records Management", how data
will be stored, in catalogues about Indexing and storage. Government
employees should learn about the law and know their responsibilities. They
should maintain records plan. An Information Officer will be responsible
for "Reporting and Oversight" , that is providing statistics such as how
long did the process took and statistics on progress. Civil society will
also be responsible for reporting and oversee. These informations can be
used as feedback to advocate for improvements. Annual audits can be useful.

This was the end of the introduction session and there was a question from
Ish Sookun on the purpose and the outcome of this particular workshop. Ms
Corinna replied that this depends on each participant, how they want to
contribute and how much stake they have in FOI.

After this session were given a small break and the next part of the
workshop was about "Drafting-- process + substance.

For this session, all the participants changed their seats to form new
groups, to discuss on how to draft a Freedom of information act. We were
given a sheet which included questions for discussion on both process and
substance of a FOI law.

The questions about the process were :

   1. Who should lead the process
   2. who should be involved
   3. Should there be a drafting committee? If so, who should be part of
   it.
   4. Should the government take the lead? If so, should they seek input
   from stakeholders and the public? How would that engagement best work.

The questions on substance were :

   1. Which ministry or office should administer or oversee a FOIA? Should
   it live in an existing ministry or should it be a new centralized office be
   created
   2. Who will have responsibility for overseeing FOIA in ministries?
   3. Not all information created or maintained by government is public
   information. What categories of information should be considered
   non-public and excepted for release? How can we ensure any exceptions
   are not so broad as to cover information that should be released?
   4. If a requester disagrees with the government's decision, what options
   should exist for a recourse? Appeals? Seeking assistance from an
   Ombudsman or Information Commissioner?
   5. What type of reporting should ministries produce? What would reports
   include? How often would they be published?
   6. Should information released to a requester be automatically released
   to the public?

Each group was asked to choose a spokesperson and a note taker. Each table
had a copy of the Freedom of Information Act of Indian and the United
States. These were to be used as examples to answer the given questions.
After this session , participants had lunch and after 30 minutes the next
session started. This session focussed on the implementation and examining
all roles. Since people will start to use the law, the government must be
prepared to respond to requests. So what are the preparation to be done on
both sides.

Questions for discussion were :

   - For government :


   1. What are the various roles involved and what duties might correspond
   to each ?
   2. Will regulations, guidance or other best practices be needed? What
   would they entail ?
   3. What must be included in training for government employees? Who
   should receive the training ?
   4. How can government build awareness of a new law and educate the
   public on what it does (and what it does not do) ?


   - For Requesters :


   1. What roles do requesters and the general public play?
   2. what type of training or education is needed? Who can assist with
   this ?

This session ended and was followed by another break. The next session was
on using the FOI laws, to demonstrate that we were asked to do a role play.
Participants were put in groups of 3, each group had a requester, an
Information Officer and a Transport Expert. The main scenario here is the
requester contacting the Information officer for information and then the
Officer contacts the Transport officer who never heard of the information
officer. This was to show the constraints and issues that may arises.

Due to lack of time only 3 groups could do the role play, Ish and Sun
volunteered to present their role play, which was quite realistic to what
we are already facing when dealing with certain authorities. After this
session Ish also mentioned that this Government mentioned FOIA last year
and yet nothing has been heard till now.

The last part was a conclusion and mention of what path should stakeholders
of FOIA take ? Should there be an output such as a paper or report ? If so,
who will lead the process ?

Ms Corinna Zarek asked who wants to go forward with an FOIA and there were
few hands in the air. Those interested suggested that we should have a
common platform on which we can share our ideas and also how to proceed.

After the workshop we had informal talks with Ms Corinna Zarek, Ms Priya
and Ms Fox. Ms Priya said that she will contact us by mail to proceed
further with the FOIA. Ms Fox said that she wanted to meet us to know more
on the Mauritius Internet Users.

Regards
Omdeep
Received on Mon Dec 14 2015 - 18:30:31 PST

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