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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | July 2005 
Release Of Sensitive Data Being Stalled
 Carlos Avilés Allende - El Universal
Government agencies are using a new tool to avoid or delay releasing sensitive information to the newly created Federal Access to Information Institute (IFAI): legal injunctions.
According to court documents, federal secretariats and organisms are repeatedly appealing IFAI decisions calling for the release of information by using amparos. An amparo is a type of injunction unique to the Mexican justice system that brings legal proceedings to a temporary halt until a judge rules on the matter.
According to sources from the IFAI, the transparency body has detected that in some cases, the companies or agencies know beforehand they will lose the appeal, but appeal anyway simply to delay the release of the information. This sort of appeal has been used 83 times since the IFAI began functioning two years ago.
The injunctions are presented in federal courts arguing against the release of information solicited by the IFAI, and judges have then taken months or sometimes over a year before ruling on the appeal.
In some cases, private companies have presented the injunctions to prevent government agencies from releasing information about them: For example Telmex tried to prevent the Federal Telecommunications Commission from releasing information it had on file about the telephone giant.
A judicial oversight body that dictates protocol in federal courts has drafted a document stating that these amparos are being abused and should not be accepted by lower courts. If a government agency wishes to block the release of information, the document states, legal action will have to go directly before the Supreme Court. |
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