Reflections on the implementation of the Dutch Open Government Act
Wim Voermans and Annemarie Drahmann attended a parliamentary standing committee which reflected on the implementation of the Open Government Act in the Netherlands.
Prior to the meeting, Voermans and Drahmann had prepared a position paper. According to Professor Voermans, the transparency of government information has not improved since the introduction of the Open Government Act (Wet open overheid, Woo). What has noticeably increased is the reluctance and resistance at public authorities to apply the Act correctly. According to Voermans, the solution starts with ensuring information management is in order, especially the systematic classification of government information from high - decisions, archives - to low - e-mails, WhatsApp messages etc. Public authorities must also become more citizen- and service-oriented when implementing the Act. The information that public authorities produce and manage belongs to all of us. We, the Dutch citizens, are the owners of the information produced by public authorities, if only because it was done with taxpayers' money. Being able to inspect ‘our’ information is essential to the functioning of our democracy.
In her position paper, Annemarie Drahmann also calls for expeditiously putting information management in order and the obligation to actively disclose documents. Before these two elements are rectified, it cannot be concluded that the law is unenforceable. She also points to the new ground for exception in the Act, being the proper functioning of the State, other public bodies or administrative authorities. This ground for exception was intended for exceptional cases, but in practice it appears to be applied alarmingly often. Interpreting the grounds for exceptions too broadly detracts from the transparency of government information.
These position papers, together with the papers of other speakers are available (in Dutch) here.
The roundtable meeting can be viewed here (in Dutch).