Friday, January 19, 2007

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands: The Cayman Islands Legislative Drafting Department is currently revising the draft Freedom of Information Bill for submission to Cabinet and onwards to the Legislative Assembly (LA) by the end of March 2007 for debate and approval in the House.

Following submission of a document containing a number of recommendations on changes to the content of the proposed law, Cabinet has issued the Legislative Drafting Department with instructions to prepare a revised draft bill.

The document sent to Cabinet was compiled by a specially assigned working group who pored over literally hundreds of pages of comments, suggestions, recommendations, and protests from individuals, local private and public sector organisations, and international non-governmental organisations.

The targeted March 2007 tabling of the Freedom of Information draft Bill in the LA will mark a full circle in the travels of this proposed law that was first presented to lawmakers and the public by Leader of Government Business Kurt Tibbetts as a discussion paper in November 2005.

Keen for public input in a bill that is key to ensuring transparency in the conduct of public affairs and safeguarding of human rights, government took the draft to the community through a series of district meetings across the Cayman Islands.

At the same time an invitation was issued to the public to submit their input by email to the FOI website or to deliver hard copies of their recommendations.

Government’s open approach to the design of this proposed legislation, and the fact that the law is being introduced on the administration’s own initiative, earned the Cayman Islands congratulatory remarks at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) meeting in Dominica in November of last year.

Persons from the Caribbean and other regions of the world attending that meeting had gathered for a freedom of information workshop. In their official release issued at the end of the meeting, delegates cited Cayman’s methodology as an example for other countries.

Originally targeted for completion at the end of July 2006, the report to Cabinet encompassing all public comments was delayed because the working group found itself having to consider a continuous stream of incoming comments.

In addition, a great deal of the input arrived after the 28 April, 2006, deadline for submissions. The working group elected to include the late submissions because of the importance of the expected law.

Based on the wide-ranging proposals from individuals and organisations the working group submitted to Cabinet, various critical suggestions for changes to the original FOI draft bill, all of which government forwarded to the drafting department for development into legal language.

One of the changes in the re-drafted bill is expected to include making the retrospective effect of the law unlimited, as against the originally suggested 30-year limitation. In other words if the record exists, it should be provided, subject to the exemptions.

Instead of having some pubic entities being named as exempt organisations, the proposed law will affect all such bodies, but certain records within them are to be excluded from public scrutiny. Reasons for exclusion of documents range from issues of national security, the national economy and privacy of the individual to financial and other trade secrets. It is suggested that after the law is passed with its agreed exemptions, only parliament should be allowed to add to the list of areas on which public access is denied.

There is however, a measurement of ‘greater public interest’ which must be weighed against the exemption of records requested by a member of the public. In most cases, it is expected that if it can be demonstrated that such interest is greater than the potential harm to an individual or entity through revelation of information, then the request should be granted.

It is also expected that an independent FOI Commissioner, holding rank similar to that of the Complaints Commissioner and Auditor General, will be responsible for fielding and investigating appeals from members of the public whenever access to information is denied.

This office was preferred over the instrument of an appeals tribunal - which was proposed in the discussion Bill - as it was felt that an independent oversight body with an administrative and investigate support structure was the most effective and efficient mechanism for ensuring objective and timely review of appeals against public entities.

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