![]() Citizens can appreciate that very difficult decisions have to be made by elected officials and professional civil servants and that not everything will go smoothly right from the beginning. Most countries have never faced a crisis comparable to the COVID-19 pandemic within living memory. ![]() In an extended emergency situation, it is normal that public administrations make mistakes. The best quality legislation on freedom of information explicitly prohibits governments restricting information in order to cover up incompetence, inefficiency, maladministration, or to otherwise prevent public officials being embarrassed. If they don’t, it is likely due to a lack of appreciation of the importance of freedom of information - not because of the crisis. Moreover, those departments that are working directly on the crisis are likely to be in their offices, and in a position to share the information they are working with.Įven in total lock-down situations such as the one in effect in Italy, modern public administrations are able to collect and provide information. Unless the information management system of the authority is stuck in the age of purely paper-based administration, it should be possible to retrieve and provide information to the public. Public officials working from home are not necessarily unable to provide information to the public. All relevant information should be proactively published simultaneously to the requests being answered. Requests for information related to the emergency should be answered within a very short time-frame. However, timely and accurate information on the spread of the virus, the public health measures put in place and other public safety issues can be a matter of life and death.Įven a government with reduced resources should prioritise collecting, organising and delivering information to its citizens. In these circumstances, the fulfilment of freedom of information requests may well be reduced, for the practical reason that there is no public official available to answer them. The governments of many countries heavily affected by the virus have reduced activities to a minimum so they can focus on critical state functions and keep public officials and the public safe. ![]() ![]() But, in practice, they still restrict fundamental rights and justify it with the COVID-19 emergency. Many governments have not formally declared a state of emergency and complied with their international law obligations to let other countries know (you can check whether you country has done so here). When a country takes this step, it has to immediately inform other countries through the Secretary General of the United Nations on the details of and reasons for the restrictions. Two essential conditions must be met for such restrictions to be justified: the situation must amount to a public emergency that threatens the life of the nation, and the State must have officially proclaimed a state of emergency. The right to information is one of the rights that can be restricted, but the purpose should be the same as restricting freedom of assembly: protecting the right to life. Failure to do so in Spain appears to have resulted in dire consequences. According to Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, when a country declares a public emergency, it can take measures that restrict particular fundamental rights, but only “to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation”.įor example, it may be reasonable to ban mass demonstrations to stop the spread of the virus through a crowd.
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