Ranking Nacional de Transparência e Lei de Acesso à Informação: Identificação das obrigações de transparência ativa não avaliadas

Abstract

The Law on Access to Information (LAI) represents a new paradigm for government transparency in Brazil. LAI provides for the obligation for public agencies to proactively disclose public interest information through the internet, which is called active transparency. LAI determines both the minimum content to be published and how such disclosure should occur. But the lack of a central body to manage the implementation of this Law in the various Brazilian public entities generates uneven application. This lack of a central supervisory authority can be partly offset by social pressure. Rankings have been shown to be essential tools for the formation of public opinion and the exercise of this social pressure necessary for LAI implementation. The National Transparency Ranking was conducted by the Federal Prosecutor's Office in 2015 and is the largest survey of this species ever conducted. But the methodology used did not allow us to evaluate all active transparency obligations provided for in LAI. Thus, the objective of this work was to identify legal requirements of active transparency provided for in LAI, which were not evaluated in the methodology used by the National Transparency Ranking. As a result, it was found that the unvalued obligations are mainly linked to the way information is presented. Finally, it is suggested to change the methodology used by the National Transparency Ranking to incorporate the evaluation of more items related to the content presentation.