The construction of the law of access to information in the brazilian national congress: systematization of its legislative process

Abstract

Introduction: Since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, access to information has been explicitly configured as a fundamental right. In Brazil, the first legislative or normative initiatives on the subject are marked by the restriction of access, but this perspective would change, especially after the 1988 Constitution. Thus, it is observed that the construction of a legal system of access to information in the country underwent several changes, making it the object of study by several areas of knowledge
Objective: To systematize, present and analyze the legislative process that culminated in the approval of the Access to Information Law (Law No. 12,527/2011).
Methodology: The research is based on a brief literature review from which a documentary corpus was defined, comprising documents resulting from the legislative procedure in the National Congress.
Results: The right to access information in Brazil went through several moments until it was enshrined in a specific federal law, the Law on Access to Information (LAI). Since the first bills that passed through the National Congress in 2003, LAI only became a reality after an extensive legislative process, which relied on ideological antagonisms and attempts to impose maximum secrecy on State documents.
Conclusions: The processing of the LAI followed the formalities in the Brazilian legal system, although it took eight years for its approval. From the discussions surrounding its text, what is extracted from the analyzes is that, despite some opposing positions defended by a minority group of parliamentarians, especially in the Senate, the approved text was aligned with the main international texts regarding the aspects of transparency, democracy and freedom of information.