A new right to information (RTI) Bill was presented to Panama’s National Assembly in August 2023 but was then withdrawn the following month due to civil society pressure. At the request of local civil society groups, the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) prepared an analysis of the Bill, with the aim of supporting advocacy efforts to improve future drafts.
The Proposed Transparency and Access to Public Information Bill was to replace Panama’s current RTI law, first adopted in 2002. The proposed legislation would have improved the current RTI legislation the RTI Rating. Specifically, the current law scores just 93 points out of a possible 150 whereas the Bill scored 102 points. The Bill would need to be improved in several areas to align with the many countries in the Americas which have really strong RTI laws.
CLD’s analysis is available here and its RTI Rating of the proposed legislation is available here.