The Comptroller General of the Union (CGU) reviewed 252 cases of data requests via the Access to Information Law (LAI) that were denied in the previous government. Upon taking office, on January 1, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva determined the review of acts that imposed undue secrecy on publicly accessible documents. This Tuesday (16th), the CGU presented the balance of the works during an event, in Brasília, in celebration of the 11 years of the LAI’s existence. According to the agency, in most of the 252 cases, the secrecy imposed was reversed and the information was handed over to the applicants. “I requested that this analysis be carried out without passion, but in a technical and impartial way, in full respect for what is in the laws and the Constitution. The work resulted in the overthrow of more than half of the secrecy analyzed, shed light on the tragedies and abuse over the last few years, overcame misinterpretations of our legislation and went further, generating statements so that there are no more doubts about how to provide or assign secrecy to information from now on”, said President Lula, in a speech at the CGU event. Among the most relevant topics, objects of the review of secrecy, are those related to the possible irregular performance of federal government institutions during the 2022 presidential elections and the mismanagement of the covid-19 pandemic. Another topic of repercussion was the use of secrecy on the public agenda and spending on corporate payment cards, in addition to disciplinary matters. “Transparency, access to information and open data policies are allies of life,” said Lula, citing information about the covid-19 pandemic. “While our friends, neighbors and relatives had their lives taken away by the disease; while the images of crowded hospitals and people being treated in the corridors invaded the screens of TVs and cell phones; while any serious person knew the seriousness of what was happening, the previous government tried to minimize the situation. Information was withheld at press conferences, public agents were constrained not to report what was happening and even the official internet page with the covid data was changed to make it difficult for the population to follow it”, added the president. For the CGU, the cases of undue secrecy mistakenly mobilized concepts such as the protection of personal data, the guarantee of national security or of the President of the Republic and his family members, or even the protection of intelligence activities. With the review, the folder prepared a technical opinion to prevent mistaken decisions about secrecy from happening again. Some examples of matters that were opened after CGU’s review are the payroll loan from Auxílio Brasil during the 2nd round of the presidential elections; the operation of the Federal Highway Police in the second round of elections; former president Jair Bolsonaro’s vaccination card; the Ministry of Health’s stock of vaccines and medicines; the list of visitors to the palaces; and completed disciplinary administrative processes, such as that of former Minister of Health and Army General Eduardo Pazuello. With the revision, expenses with the corporate card of the former presidents of the Republic between 2003 and 2022 were also disclosed. Temer (2016-2018) and Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022). The CGU worked from 64,571,000 requests for access to information denied, in whole or in part, by federal public administration bodies in the period from 2019 to 2022. The study focused on cases that reached the third level of appeal at the CGU, and had the denial of access maintained, in a total of 1,335 decisions. The controllership selected 234 concrete cases for analysis. To this group, another 18 related cases were added throughout the work, totaling 252. Of this set, 111 are related to national security, 40 are related to the security of the President of the Republic and his family members, 50 are about personal information, 29 about activities intelligence and 22 on miscellaneous subjects. At the CGU event, President Lula also signed three decrees that update the LAI and access to public information.
Agência Brasil
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