Access to Public Information: Approved Guidelines vs. Installed reality. Construction of Citizenship and Opposite Rights

Abstract

Uruguay, as well as other countries in the region, has committed to approve and extend a legal framework to place human beings in the center of all actions, highlighting their rights and facilitating the fulfillment of their obligations and their participation. This initiative has reached the protection of personal data, the regulation of the e-signature, access to public information and a National Records Act. Uruguay is the only country in Latin America where the initiative of these two laws comes from civil society. Specifically, it is important to highlight that the process of its writing and communication was performed at the same time by a team of professionals and citizens concerned by the matter. The Access to Public Information Law challenged all public organisms, and the same thing was supposed to happen with the Records Act. However, there is still not enough maturity to accept their importance. Without these, there is no document organization and therefore no access to information, and without access to information there is not possible democracy.