A bill aimed at opening up government information to the public passed a preliminary review in a legislative committee yesterday. The bill would make possible easier public access to government documents to promote a better understanding of government policies.
The bill would also give foreigners access to government information.
Except for Article 2, Article 7, and Clause 8 of Article 19 -- which require cross-party negotiations to iron out differences -- the remainder of the 24-article bill will proceed to a second reading after it passed the scrutiny of the legislature's Technology and Information Committee yesterday morning.
The bill mandates that the government should make public certain documents, including treaties, laws and regulations, contact information for government agencies, research papers, budgetary books and procurement contracts for public projects. The bill would also ban some government information from becoming public.
Information that would not be kept from the public includes national secrets, draft government policies and pending legal cases.
During yesterday's committee meeting, while Article 2 defines the legislation as a common law, People First Party (PFP) committee member and Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) argued that it should be enacted as a special law.
Vice minister of the Ministry of Justice, Chu Nan (朱楠), however, said that it does not make sense to enact the law as a special one because that is only done under exceptional circumstances.
"Because there is no existing law regulating the opening of government information to the public, it only makes sense to make a common law first before any special law is enacted for special occasions," Chu said.
Lu also questioned Article 7, which he said would grant government agencies the final say on the openness of government information. Clause 8 of Article 19 states that cultural assets must not be open or made available to the public, but Lu said that such a move would only encroach on the public's right to know.
"Shouldn't the government make more effort to make public as much culturally related material as possible?" Lu said.
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