LEGAL PROPOSITION ON THE PUBLIC FREEDOM OF INFORMATION OF INDONESIA
By: Adistra Kusuma Waligalit, Faculty of Law of Gadjah Mada University
This study identified several Legal defects regarding the Act on Public Freedom of Information of Indonesia. These legal defects will be explained along with the reccomendations of remedy as below.
INTRODUCTION
After experiencing a difficult time in New Order era (1966-1998), when the civil rights to freely obtain information had been abused by the government at that time, a glimmer of hope emerged when the government enact a new Act regarding Public Freedom of Information in 2008 (Act number 14). But just as too good to be true, the hope was only short lived. It seemed that the government is
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One of the notable use of this rule is the “thirty year rule” by the law in United Kingdom, where the government will publicly release the cabinet papers after thirty years they were created.
Executive Order 13526 imposed in United States is an example of a provision that handles classified informations.
SECOND: Unclear definition of public entity.
Public entity is a body that obliged to give the informations to the public. In article 1 of Act number 14 year 2008, it is mentioned that the definition of public entity is an institution of executive, legislative, judicative, and other institutions with the function relating to the state administrative or non-government institution of which receives budget from the state or from donation.
The definition of public entity given by the article is very broad and blur. It will only obscuring the purpose of the existence of public service. The act itself does not regulate about the obligation of any private business entities that is under contract with public entity, considering many cases occured because of private entities claim to acting on behalf of the government to obtain certain legal permit.
This is the fundamental weakness of the act where it does not clearly regulates the subjects of the law and still lacking further explanation regarding the public entity. Without it, people will be very hard to obtain informations from the
Based on this case, the nine Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) disclosure exemptions indicate the information that government agencies can withhold. For instance, documents which are “records or information compiled for law enforcement purpose” (Ciment, 2015). Exemption (7)(A) provides for the withholding of a law enforcement record the disclosure of which would reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings. Furthermore, the 2002 law establishing the Department of Homeland Security gave that department
Another piece of legislation that can affect the management of confidential information is the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Anyone is allowed to request information that has been recorded by any public-sector organisation, for example:
covers correct storage and sharing of both manual and electronic information. There are eight principles put in place by the Data Protection Act 1998 to make sure that information is handled properly:
9. These conditions preserve the confidentiality of the communication or data, and the legal protections regarding the use and disclosure of privileged information, and thus such communications and data are private and confidential. Further, the U.S. Government shall take all reasonable measures to protect the content of captured/seized privileged communications and data to ensure they are appropriately protected.
A public service is a service that is funded by the government or by donations to help the government deliver its actions as effectively as possible. There are two types of public services they are statutory and non-statutory services. The difference between a statutory and a non-statutory service is that a statutory service is paid by tax payers, funded by the government and is set up by the law. They are usually uniformed and highly professional an example would be the Emergency Services and the Armed Forces. A non-statutory service is a service that doesn’t receive a lot of government funding so they are paid by members or the public as they are registered as charities, they are set up by individuals and not parliament and unlike
In addition, the freedom to information by government authorities must not exceedingly surpass the rights and privileges that citizens enjoy (Re and Richard, pg. 1887).
A public business is when they are not looking forward to making money like unicef
Public administration is just like any other administration that is for the public’s interest and its main purpose serves as a government policy. It is a course of action that is taken through government party into a policy. Public administration is the management of public programs. It is considered a public affair that works mainly with the executive branch and is part of governmental functions.
The main principle behind freedom of information legislation is that people have a right to know about the activities of public authorities.
Public sector refers to the part of the economy concerned with providing essential government services. The public sector includes such services as a police, military public roads, primary education and healthcare for the poor.
Enacted on July 4, 1966, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) provides any person with the right, enforceable in court, to obtain access to federal agency records, except to the extent that such records are protected from public disclosure by one of nine exemptions, or one of three special law enforcement record exclusions. Requests can be made for any agency record, and as recognized by Congress, numerous presidents and the Supreme Court, the FOIA is an important tool of
A public sector business is a business that usually composed of organisations that are owned and operated by the government (PrivacySense2015).
The freedom of speech that was possible on the Internet could now be subjected to governmental approvals. For example, China is attempting to restrict political expression, in the name of security and social stability. It requires users of the Internet and electronic mail (e-mail) to register, so that it may monitor their activities. In the United Kingdom, state secrets and personal attacks are off limits on the Internet. Laws are strict and the government is extremely interested in regulating the Intern et with respect to these issues.10 Laws intended for other types of communication will not necessarily apply in this medium.
The thesis deals with the above concepts and discusses how the Companies Act 71 of 2008 (the Act) modified the law, particularly, by extending the legal capacity of a company and extinguishing or modifying the above rules which had previously restricted a company's ability
Public interest is given priority. The public sector looks into the interest of the general public. The government under this economy is said to be welfare state. It introduces social insurance schemes, incurs expenditure and manages economy in the interest of general masses of the country.