I should give credit where it's due on PATI

One of the most frequent criticisms in the world of politics is a focus on what someone failed to do. It’s also one of the worst. We hear it all the time: “So-and-so failed to mention this, or failed to do that, or failed to consider the other.” And then the critic counts that failure as condemnation, all the while ignoring all the things mentioned or done right.

I first recognized the injustice of this in high school when I spelled three words wrong in a 100-word essay. The teacher marked in large letters in red ink at the top of the page “-3”. That was it. Never mind the 97 words spelled right — it was as though they didn’t count.

I shudder when I hear community leaders make this kind of unfair attack. I shudder twice when I get called up for doing a similar thing, as I did last week.

Last week I used the Public Access to Information Act (PATI) as an example of consultation done only halfway. I pointed to aspects of the consultation process that had NOT been done while giving little credit to all the work that had. While some aspects of the ideal consultation were missing — and it was those I focused on — The PATI consultation did many things right:

• In 2005, under former Premier Alex Scott, a comprehensive and easy-to-read PATI policy discussion paper was released in which an eleven-person advisory team was identified;

• In July 2009, members of the Central Policy Unit (CPU) spent up to two weeks in Cayman Islands with Carole Excell, an internationally respected expert in

Freedom-of-Information law. She had expertise in both policy development and implementation in jurisdictions similar to ours (Jamaica and Cayman). Eventually Ms Excell was brought to Bermuda to meet with Cabinet ministers, civil society groups and the general public;

• In mid-October 2009, the draft legislation and a “companion guide” was made public through the government website and the Royal Gazette;

• The CPU made a series of presentations on PATI which were very well done; They were confident and responsive, responded to e-mails queries with answers, and explained the process they were using;

• In November 2009, a deadline for submissions was announced, giving the public two weeks to get their views in.

• Some suggestions from the public were incorporated into the legislation;

• The public’s submissions have been made public. They are available to view in binders at the Cabinet Office, they will be in the Official Gazette and will eventually be posted online;

• Behinds the scenes, the CPU and Cabinet Office were preparing comprehensive Briefs, collating the submissions for release, updating and amending the Bill and getting the PATI Unit set up to start the implementation process.

Alongside, and in some cases triggered by the CPU’s PATI initiatives, individuals and NGOs entered the discussion:

• The RG was engaged with its ‘Right to Know’ campaign which kept PATI in the public’s mind;

• MP John Barritt contacted Toby Mendel of the organisation Article IX who made an independent analysis of the Consultation Draft, so that lay-people could make better sense of the legal implications;

• Local NGO CCAB (the Coalition for Community Activism in Bermuda) hosted Round Table discussions on Information Policy for 25 public and political leaders from all parties, unions, Human Rights activists, the Ombudsman, as well as for the public, with international experts Toby Mendel and Laura Neuman in January 2010.

I am prepared to accept that the government is relatively new to the consultation process and that it had/has some internal resistance to the concept of full transparency.

But it did have the example of the Sustainable Development Initiative (SDI) it could have followed. Plus, the U.K. parliament has a website chock full of consultations in motion and a recipe for the process.

 It would have helped if they had laid out the entire process right from the beginning so the public would know clearly what was going to happen to their submissions, and when.

Still, I could have been more charitable and acknowledged the efforts toward transparency. I am correcting that in this column.