The Salvadoran Congress ratified the Public Information Access Law on Thursday, March 3, after accepting some of the changes proposed by President Mauricio Funes, reported news agency EFE.
However while the law will go into effect until 30 days after its official publication, Salvadorans will have to wait a year before they can solicit public information from a state agency, according to La Prensa Gráfica.
The legislature initially approved the information access law in December, but the president sought some amendments.
El Faro pointed out that one of the president's proposed changes, supported by Congress members, was to not classify as always publicly available any information related to the government's property holdings, but that information still could be requested. Other exceptions to access include information that compromises national security or national interests, El Faro said.
For more information about information access laws in Latin America, see this Knight Center map.
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» Artículo 19 (El Salvador: ARTICLE 19 celebrates approval of transparency law (in Spanish)
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
