The Constitutional Right to Information

Abstract

Freedom of Information Laws have swept the democratic world in the past twenty years, yet the normative level of these laws and the balance between the public's Right to Know and other legal or constitutional rights vary from one country to the other. In this article, the authors review the justifications underlying the global recognition of the right to access information, and go on to argue that these same justifications support constitutional, rather than mere legal, recognition of the right. Such status has been granted to this right in several countries through explicit inclusion in the constitution, and in several others through constitutional courts' interpretation of it. But in the United States and many other countries this is yet to be done. Towards the end of the article, authors suggest a model for constitutional articles defining a constitutional right to Freedom of Information.

Keywords: Freedom of information, Right to Know, Comparative Law, International Law, Constitutional Law