European and Chilean experts debate on “Transparency, probity and the fight against corruption at a local level”, within the framework of the “Chilean-European Union within the framework of the “Chilean-European Union counterpoints for the constituent process” debates.
Foto: Álvaro Reyes
On 15 September, another session of the “Chilean-EU counterpoints for the constituent process” debates was held, in which the experts from the European Union Programme for Social Cohesion, EUROsociAL+, María Ángeles González Bustos, Professor of Administrative Law at the University of Salamanca, and Víctor Lapuénte Giné, Professor at the University of Gothenburg all took part.
The event was moderated by Bernardo Navarrete, an academic from the University of Santiago de Chile (USACH) and member of the Council for Transparency. They were joined during the comments section by Javiera Carreño, a Law student at the University of Concepción.
In his introduction, Navarrete asked himself whether transparency can actually harm democracy. He felt that this would not be damaging if it is tempered by “the opacity of the political system and the government, at the same time as it brings institutions closer to citizens and contributes to their legitimacy, understanding them as those who make the rules. However, it is damaging when the obsession with democracy and externalising everything generates negative externalities. An example of this is the delegitimisation of political parties and the representation they exercise”, he said.
For Navarrete, transparency is not a natural condition for government organisations and is indeed less absolute for them. It is therefore necessary to “balance the right of access to information with the necessary understanding of its impact on the national organisation.”
Law on transparency, access to information and data protection
María Ángeles González Bustos began her address by stating that “citizens should demand and have transparency in all their public affairs. This is done through the right to information. These principles thus become the fundamental rights of any democratic state, as they can combat corruption and all the administration’s opacity.”
Transparency is understood as all relevant information related to the operation and control of the institutions. “For this reason, institutional, economic and statistical budgetary information, among other aspects, is important and has to be provided within a context of transparency. This is what we call active advertising. Access to such data is universal, it must be up-to-date, free and clear”, argued González Bustos.
With regard to good governance, she said that “these are a set of principles and actions applicable to political leaders, normally those in senior positions such as ministers and mayors, among others. However, they do not cover the president of the government or regional leaders.”
For María Ángeles González Bustos, “this set of regulations that is providing good results, is well articulated, the guarantee mechanisms are efficient. However, public ethics have to improve, we need to stop hearing about cases of corruption and there has to be effective management of compliance with such action. Finally, an active and vigilant citizenry is required that also involves the media and social organisations”, she said.
The relationship between transparency and corruption
Víctor Lapuente, professor at the University of Gothenburg, argued that it is crucial to study the relationship between transparency and corruption “because I do not know of any variable that is more correlated with the well-being of the population, seeing as it is a phenomenon that goes beyond the merely illegal. To put it simply, the perception that the State, now we are talking about ‘legal corruption’, benefits private interests, creates frustration and unhappiness for citizens”.
Regarding the access to information guaranteed in the Swedish constitution, he pointed out that “there is no transparency agency, no professionals, no bodies of this type. It is simply assumed on principle that all public money has to be explained and every citizen has the right to know about that expenditure. There are simple regulations, such as that in five days, any public official has to provide information on these transactions.”
He added that this accessibility to information “should be a mirror on ourselves which need not necessarily be replicated in all countries. The legal idiosyncrasies may be different, but it could serve as a model.”
Víctor Caro Castro, director of the USACH Centre for Future Studies, said that the issues of “transparency and access to information and all matters related to this area need to be backed by strong institutions that guarantee the availability of public information but which also requires proactive citizenship in the use thereof. In this sense, both must play a major role in discovering and effectively combating the harmful effects of corruption”, he said.
The “Chilean-EU counterpoints for the constituent process” debates are organised by the European Union Delegation in Chile, through the EUROsociAL+ Programme, together with LEXEN, the University of Chile’s Inter-faculty Centre of Law, Economics and Business, the University of Santiago’s Centre for Future Studies and the University of Concepción’s European Studies Programme, in collaboration with El Mostrador.
