The principle behind the right of access to information is that public bodies are elected by the people and sustained by taxpayers’ funds, so the public should have a right to know how that power is being used and how that money is being spent.

The Government’s Duty To Publish and to Answer: This right of access to information places two key obligations on governments. First, there is the obligation to publish and disseminate key information about what different public bodies are doing. Second, governments have the obligation to receive from the public requests for information and the obligation to respond, either by letting the public view the original documents or receive copies of documents and information held by the public bodies.

So, access to information is a right with two parts to it:

a.  Proactive:
The positive obligation of public bodies to provide, to publish and to disseminate information about their main activities, budgets and policies so that the public can know what they are doing, can participate in public matters and can control how public authorities are behaving.

b.  Reactive:   
The right of all persons to ask public officials for information about what they are doing and any documents they hold and the right to receive an answer. The majority of information held by public bodies should be available, but there are some cases where the information won’t be available in order to protect privacy, national security or commercial interests.

Many countries around the world have now adopted access to information laws to give effect to the right of access to information. The first law was the Swedish law in 1766, but after that it took a while for the idea to catch on: Finland adopted its access to information law in 1951 and the United States in 1966. There was a small but steady growth in laws during the 1970s and 1980s but the real expansion was after 1989 when civil society groups in central and eastern Europe started claiming this right as part of the shift of power during the post-Communist transitions.

This chart shows how the number of laws regulating the right of access to information has grown significantly in recent years. This chart shows the total number of laws in a series of years since the world’s first law (Sweden, 1766) through to the most recent laws to enter into force (Russia, January 2010). More details of the laws and dates can be found in Annex A and Annex B.