The Ordinance on Transparency, Access to Information and Re-use of the Yaiza City Council has already entered the final phase before its entry into force. As stated in the Official Gazette of the Province this Monday, the municipal regulation has been definitively approved, after having concluded without allegations or claims the public exposure period that began on May 18. Once 15 business days have elapsed from this publication, the regulation will officially come into operation.
This municipal regulation is divided into a total of 7 chapters, which regulate all aspects related to the information that the institution must make public and the exercise of the right to information of citizens. With this ordinance, the southern City Council complies with the Law on Transparency, Access to Public Information and Good Governance of December 2013, which established that local entities had a maximum period of 2 years to "adapt to the obligations" contained in that law.
"The Ordinance has a double objective: the regulatory one and the one of promoting the effectiveness of the principle of transparency", points out the beginning of this Yaiza Ordinance collected in the BOP. In the exposition of reasons for the implementation of this municipal regulation, the "identification of open government and its principles with the local administration" is pointed out. "Open government is one that is based on transparency as a means for the best achievement of the purpose of involving citizens in participation and collaboration with the public", adds that exposition, while stating that "a government that does not render accounts to the citizen is not legitimized before it".
Publication "ex officio" of information on contracting, subsidies or budgets
The ordinance regulates this rendering of accounts focusing on different aspects in each chapter. In the first of them, it is stated that the regulation of municipal transparency affects not only the "parent administration", the City Council itself, but also "all dependent entities through which the municipal public entity also carries out its activity". The regulations also provide for the creation of a "unit responsible for public information".
The ordinance includes the information that the institution must publish "ex officio" and "by electronic means", which includes "information about the institution, its organization, planning and personnel; information about senior officials and people who exercise the highest responsibility of the entities; information of legal and patrimonial relevance, on contracting, agreements and subsidies; economic, financial and budgetary information; on services and procedures and environmental and urban planning information".
For "passive transparency", that is, access to public information, some limits are established, such as that the information could affect "national security", "defense", the "prevention, investigation and sanction" of crimes, the "equality of the parties" in judicial processes and, "especially", the protection of personal data. Thus, the denial of access to information may only be given "based on any of the regulated limits", and always after a "motivated and proportionate" resolution that leaves "accredited the damage to those matters and there is no higher public or private interest that justifies its access". The regulation also regulates the "re-use of public information", which has as its "fundamental objective the generation of public value in citizenship in the social, innovative and economic fields".
Finally, the regulations also regulate the "system of complaints and claims" in case of its "violation", when the Administration "does not comply with its obligations in terms of active advertising, in order to avoid having to request" the information, and the claim before the Transparency and Good Governance Council "with optional character and prior challenge in administrative litigation". The Ordinance also includes a sanctioning regime for the re-use of public information, which includes fines for very serious and serious infractions and even the prohibition of re-using documents for a period of between 1 and 5 years.
