Kingston, Jamaica – The spread of Freedom of Information Laws throughout the Caribbean over the past decade has proceeded in a slow but steady manner though the effectiveness of those laws in each jurisdiction has varied widely, attendees at a regional conference on open records heard Wednesday.
According to University of the West Indies Professor Fay Durrant, who researched the topic ahead of the Jamaica Environmental Trust’s freedom of information conference held last week in Kingston, there are now nine Caribbean Commonwealth countries that have freedom of information laws.
Attending the conference on behalf of the Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center, Laura Neuman said the Caribbean region had “come a long way” in the past 12 or 13 years and that she considered the Cayman Islands’ open records law to be one of the Caribbean’s greatest success stories.
In the first four years of FOI in Cayman, from January 2009 to present, more than 3,000 requests for information have been made for government records.
Compare that to Belize, which has had an FOI law since 1994, but where only a handful of open records requests were made over the past two decades.
“In Belize, politics is the order of the day,” said Belize Ombudsman Oscar William Selgado. “Freedom of Information is a euphemism that we use when we come to conferences like this.”
In Jamaica, which saw a shaky start to its own FOI law in 2004, requests made by the public have picked up to more than double the amount by 2011, according to Information Unit Director Damian Cox.
“[Starting out] the level of requests, we’d say, is very low,” Mr. Cox said, adding that the number of requests in 2005 was below 400 for the year, but had since grown to more than 900 a year.
“There has been … a direct correlation in public education efforts and requests,” he said.
In the Bahamas, efforts to pass an open records law flopped, while in Barbados, St. Lucia and St. Kitts draft laws had been drafted, but not yet considered by various governing bodies.
All of the laws passed in the Caribbean, save one, allow anyone in the world to request government information. In only one country, were requesters required to be citizens or residents of the country.
“How all of these countries have fared [with FOI] is still in question,” Ms Neuman said.
Professor Durrant said the trend toward open records laws has grown worldwide as well. In 2006, there were 68 countries with access to records and information laws. As of last year, there are 93.
In some cases in the Caribbean, access to information laws were derived from external jurisdictions so that “we may find … there isn’t as much ownership of the legislation as one would like,” Ms Durrant said.
“But we’re fortunate that we are in a time where there is electronic government taking place,” she said. “While the number of requests [from the average citizen] is relatively low, on the other hand, the media has taken an interest in access to information.”
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