The Transparency Council received yesterday at its headquarters a delegation from the Moroccan Commission on the Right of Access to Information (CDAI) and of Council of Europe. This institutional collaborative visit is part of the South Programme V, an initiative developed jointly by the European Union and the Council of Europe in order to promote a common legal space with the countries of the Southern Mediterranean, based on the conventions of the Council of Europe, to protect human rights, the rule of law and democracy.

The institutional meeting was attended by, among others, the president of the Transparency Council, José Luis Rodríguez Álvarez, and his counterpart the president of the CDAI, Omar Seghrouchni.

At the meeting, the Council shared information on the characteristics of the Spanish system of transparency and, in particular, on the configuration of the right of access to information in the Transparency Act, which is strongly inspired by the Council of Europe's Tromsø Convention, recently ratified by Spain.

The legal status and the role of the Transparency Council as an independent supervisory authority in this matter was presented to the Moroccan delegation. The main practical difficulties in effectively guaranteeing the right were discussed, including the problems caused by the high percentage of cases in which administrations do not respond to requests for access (administrative silence), and the importance of the guarantor bodies having coercive powers to ensure compliance with their resolutions.

Detailed information was also shared on the Council’s work on assessing compliance with active publicity obligations, on the methodology it employs (MESTA), and on the results of these assessments.

Finally, the possibilities of establishing channels of cooperation between both institutions to contribute to the promotion of public transparency in both countries and in the Mediterranean area were examined.

The meeting was attended by the Transparency Council, in addition to its president, the Deputy Director General of Transparency, Gonzalo Gómez, the Deputy Director General of Claims, Marta Timón, and the Head of the Support Unit, Isabel Lombardero.

The CDAI delegation was composed, in addition to its president, of Souhaila Chaoui, Firdaous Methqal, Leila Jirari and Oumaima Lahnine, while the Council of Europe participated in the meeting Evangelia Vasalou and Asma Rihane.

In addition to Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine and Tunisia, the EU’s South V Programme 2022-2025 and the Council of Europe are involved. The main objective of the institutional journey of the Moroccan delegation and the Council of Europe is to strengthen transparency and institutional cooperation.