“(The INAI and the PNT) have been fundamental for society to obtain information of public interest about the actions of the authorities, learn about and report cases of corruption, ask and investigate public policies on education, health, energy, security, public contracts and militarization”, defended the INAI on August 30.
These are some matters of public interest that have been made known thanks to the INAI:
- Clandestine graves in San Fernando.
- Ayotzinapa Case.
- Odebrecht case.
- Cuernavaca Express Pass sinkhole.
- Master Scam.
- Tax credits (names of companies and amounts forgiven or canceled for the payment of taxes).
- Corruption in Segalmex.
In interview, Ernesto Diaz Iturbean expert in transparency, commented that this modification leaves “gaps” that are not considered in the constitutional reform, so it will be necessary for the details to be established in secondary regulations, such as in the General Law of Transparency and Access to Information. Information.
“The reform leaves many gaps. On the one hand, it is normal in a constitutional reform of this type. The transitional ones give 90 days for secondary legislation to be carried out. The first question will be how this new law is going to be formed,” said the former deputy director of Analysis and Research at the INAI.
He mentioned that another “gap” is whether the Secretariat of Anti-Corruption and Good Government will be a second instance that handles the review resources of citizens dissatisfied with the responses to their requests in the three Powers of the Union, or if each one will be in charge of their own data, as was the case prior to the 2014 constitutional reform.
“It is important to define the scope of the new Transparency Law, ordered by the constitutional reform, who will be the body that will address disagreements with the responses to citizens’ requests for information. Today the INAI is empowered to review the responses of the three Powers of the Union; However, the reform leaves open the possibility for each Branch to regulate itself, a model that proved not to be adequate prior to the 2014 reform,” he mentioned.
He pointed out that it also remains to be defined whether the PNT will continue to be the unified mechanism that allows requests to be sent to all public institutions in the country, or if each power and each entity will have its own system.
This is because the PNT is the tool used for citizens to submit requests for public information and personal data to the different obligated subjects of the three levels of government in Mexico, such as secretaries of State, autonomous bodies and political parties, among others. others.
Another piece of information that is not established in the constitutional reform is which authority will be in charge of protecting personal data and sanctioning those, both private and public, who misuse personal data files, he assured. María de los Ángeles Estradaexpert in transparency and anti-corruption.
“The INAI has powers to protect and guarantee the right to information, which is article 6 of the Constitution, and what we know so far, without being clear, is that these powers remain with the SFP,” said the expert.
“What is going to happen with the powers of protection of personal data? Because the INAI is in charge of providing this protection and guaranteeing those rights. What is going to happen with the rights of access, rectification, cancellation of personal data and who “Is it the authority that will be in charge?”
María de los Ángeles Estrada
The also director of the Transparency, Anti-Corruption and Digitalization initiative of the Tec. de Monterrey, recalled that the INAI has the power to sanction public servants who commit abuse or violations of the right of access to information, which is why she questioned whether the SFP is now will be left with the power to sanction his peers.
Furthermore, he explained that the Secretariat of Anti-Corruption and Good Government will not be able to have autonomy to deal with transparency issues, since for this to happen a legal reform is necessary that establishes that it is not an entity that depends directly on the Executive Branch.
“Legally, there is no possibility of that happening (for the Secretariat to be autonomous) unless there is a reform that establishes that this SFP is not a direct dependency of the Executive, but is established as an autonomous body or as the INAI began. When it was born, it was a deconcentrated body, that gave it certain powers of autonomy for now,” he declared.
Meanwhile, the political scientist Gustavo Lopez Montiel He warned that the reform only eliminates the INAI and, in general terms, places its functions in the Anti-Corruption Secretariat, since, he said, “it is only done conceptually.”
For this reason, he declared that one of the challenges is to specify how the different processes to guarantee access to information and protect personal data will be operated by the agency, and how this will be guaranteed in the states, since not all entities have a Anti-Corruption Secretariat.
For the political scientist, another point that is in “limbo” are the 15,000 million files of the National Transparency Platform (PNT); Although the federal government assured that it will keep this data, the Tec de Monterrey professor also warned that not all the information is federal.
“On the Platform there is not only the federal government, there are the state and municipal governments with all their dependencies and trusts. That information is not from the federation, it is information from the states, or from the municipalities or from the autonomous bodies. When They say that it is not clear or who will keep this information and although the federal government says: ‘it’s going to be us’, in reality there is information that does not correspond to them,” he said.
Given this, the expert considered that this should also be contemplated in secondary laws and make clear what access to information will be like in the absence of the INAI.
