22/05/2015
Honduras and EUROsociAL, the European Union programme for social cohesion in Latin America, promote a public archives law to foster transparency in the country.
Taller internacional para impulsar una Ley de Archivos en Honduras.International workshop to promote a law on public archives in Honduras.
Honduras’ Institute for Access to Public Information (IAIP) and the European Union’s cooperation programme for social cohesion in Latin America, EUROsociAL, promoted a new law on archiving in the Central American country to favour proper management of public documents and greater and better access of citizens to same.
Honduras does not currently have legislation that affords citizens complete, effective and direct access to specific State documentation; nor does it have an efficient system for physical and digital storage that includes handwritten and printed documents from all government agencies which would constitute a true national historical resource, despite the fact that the National Archives of Honduras was created in 1880.
Transparency and access to public information initiatives depend to a large extent on the quality, reliability and accessibility of the public archives that hold this information.. In this sense, documents are the basis and foundation of open government and support the principles of transparency. Properly managed documents are also an added value for government agencies and for protecting the rights and interests of citizens.
In this context, the IAIP, with the support of EUROsociAL, held an international workshop to promote a law on public archives in Honduras from 13th to 15th May 2015. The purpose of this meeting was to present the draft law for public comment and generate input for it.
At the meeting, experts from Spain, Costa Rica, Chile, El Salvador and Mexico participated, in addition to civil society and different institutions of the Honduran State (Congress of the Republic, Supreme Court of Justice, Attorney General of the Republic), associations representing the worlds of law and academia and other private institutions, as well as a number of professionals linked to the IAIP.
This EUROsociAL working line is part of its working lines on transparency and access to information, coordinated by the FIIAPP, with the CEDDET Foundation as an operational partner.
