Mr. Lord makes my point directly. We in the UK have been living as
subjects, not as citizens.** Even the Labour government accepts this
point because its strategy for democratic renewal, through the
Local:Vision 10 year strategy for local government, stresses the need to
engage citizens in the democratic process.
I, for one, find it disheartening that my fellow citizens do not see how
important the act is in making the government accountable to the people. I
fear that the people, including those who work for the government, have
been conditioned to accept that a situation pre-FOIA is an acceptable way
for a government to operate. I grant that the culture of secrecy grew up
as a result of WWII, but it is time to reassert the balance between the
citizen and the government.
The FOIA is in its early stages and how we react to it will shape its
development and the people's perceptions to it. If we are to develop a
culture whereby we expect, as a matter of RIGHT, that the government is
accountable to the people, then we need to stress how important the FOIA
is to that culture.
I would hope that the public would have the same enthusiasm for the FOIA
as they did for resisting detention without judicial review.
As for money being spent unwisely, I think that people would value their
ability to find out how the money is being spent, something that was very
hard to do in the pre-FOI world, than worry about the cost of having that
right. Elections cost a lot of money, but no one complains about their
downside.
I do not know which would be worse, that bureaucrats would treat the
public in this manner or that the public would accept this treatment.
**"Moreover, studies of political attitudes have always shown that the
notion of being a "subject" persisted much longer in Britain than in other
democracies."
Jerold Waltman "Citizenship and Civic Republicanism in Contemporary
Britain" (The Midwest Quarterly, Vol. 40, 1998)
Lawrence W. Serewicz
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