On February 7, President Peña issued several Constitutional reforms dealing with transparency. The aforementioned changes imply an important progress on the matter given that they implement the full autonomy of the Federal Institute of Access to Public Information and Data Protection (IFAI) and also include new stakeholders forced to comply with it, such as unions, political parties and public trusts, as well as an obligation for Congress to create the General Law of Transparency within a one year deadline. Undoubtedly, these modifications will put the country at the forefront in this area. Nevertheless, in the face of a heavy legislative agenda of the ordinary session period as well as the past history of delays within Constitutional deadlines by Congressmen (for instance, they have been at fault by delaying the secondary legislation of the telecommunications reform in a deadline that they themselves had established to implement), prevent the improvement of the transparency judicial framework.
Over the next few days, the current IFAI counselors will have to decide whether to ask the Senate for a continuity of their job posts, with the purpose of fulfilling the time period to which they were appointed. By doing so, they will have to appear before the corresponding commission of each chamber, and then subdue their continuity to the ratification of the Senate plenary. In any given case, Senators have the obligation of initiating the process that will end with the appointment of three counselors – given IFAI’s expansion to seven members plus the vacancy left by Jacqueline Peschard in January – as well as beginning the discussions of the General Law of Transparency. The importance of the latter is based on the need to harmonize the state laws on the matter. According to the reform’s transitory apparatus, once the aforementioned legislation has been approved, states will have a one year deadline in order to homogenize their legal system with this new bill. Currently, states do not necessarily follow the guidelines included in the Federal Law of Transparency and Information Access. Some of them already have innovative legislation – such is the case of Morelos, where it included political parties, in addition to having a public information disclosure even before the Constitutional reform – , while other still put several obstacles in the access to specific data, thereby increasing the lack of transparency.
The next months will be crucial in consolidating the progress made on transparency and accountability. Undoubtedly, civic society was a key part in the strengthening of mechanisms for the general population to keep watching the use of public resources in different government endeavors. As remembered, even when Senate commissions had issued a draft that meant several steps back in the process (law unions were exempt from it, and the transparency of political parties was sent to the department of accountability of the late Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), as well as the limitation of the enforceability and definitiveness of IFAI resolution to several official authorities), the pressure of different civic organizations was essential in modifying the draft bill and currently having the known result. Nevertheless, there are several warning signs of potential opacity.
If there is not a close follow-up towards the end of the legislative process, Congress will be forced into indifference and will delay the set-up of the renewed transparency scheme throughout the country. Likewise, the content of the General Law of Transparency will be crucial in defining the rules to determine how and in under what conditions the institutions that, as of now, have been characterized by their lack of transparency will have to be accountable for their use of public resources The risk is that political parties may find loopholes and continue hiding information about these financial resources. This being the case, the job of civic society has just started and it will remain its responsibility to force authorities to act accordingly. Otherwise, by being judge and defendant, legislators may turn the transparency reform in a mere simulation.
CIDAC
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