Nationalist MP Mario de Marco yesterday backed calls for the enactment of a Freedom of Information Act and welcomed a commitment by the Prime Minister that a White Paper on the subject would be published by year's end.

Dr de Marco spoke on the importance of freedom of information on the adjournment of the House of Representatives and said that Maltese society needed to move on from the need to know to the right to know.

The call for a Freedom of Information Act was made by the Institute of Maltese Journalists on Wednesday, which was World Press Freedom Day.

Dr Mario de Marco said the principles celebrated on World Press Freedom Day emanated from international human rights.

May 3 was a day dedicated to informing people of the importance of a free press and the problems still facing journalists in their efforts to get information to their readers or listeners. It was also a day for reminding governments of their responsibilities. This was also a day when one remembered journalists who had given up their lives for their profession.

Nobody in Malta today doubted the freedom of the press. But nobody could forget the attack on October 15, 1979 on the premises of The Times when the offices and press were set ablaze in an effort to curb freedom of expression. Nobody had ever been arraigned over this case, even though the premises were across the road from the Office of the Prime Minister.

On World Press Freedom Day these attempts to curb such freedom in Malta should also be remembered. The freedom of the press today could not be taken for granted. This had been shown by the arson attack on the home of MaltaToday editor Saviour Balzan on Wednesday itself. This attack, which all should condemn without reserve, was the work of cowards who were seeking to debase the principles that most people in Malta believed in. They would not succeed.

Dr de Marco expressed his solidarity with Mr Balzan and with all those who had had similar experiences in Malta in the recent past.

He said that the efforts of journalists in Malta should be appreciated, even if what they said and wrote was not always in line with one's beliefs. Freedom of expression was a principle without which no country could call itself democratic, even with the most efficient administration.

In a Talking Point in The Times on Wednesday, Malcolm Naudi, chairman of the Institute of Maltese Journalists, wrote that the next step in the development of press freedom in Malta should be the adoption of a Freedom of Information Act. The institute made a formal call for the government to ensure that Malta too would have such a law.

It was true that there had been important developments in Malta vis-à-vis the media over the past few years. These included new provisions to protect the confidentiality of sources and privileged information. The government had also announced that liability to imprisonment over cases of simple libel would be removed.

It was positive that in reaction to the institute's appeal, the government had said that it would be issuing a White Paper by the end of the year.

Dr de Marco said excessive secrecy in government quarters could lead to administrative arrogance. Public opinion over the past 30 years had changed, and people now expected more open and accountable government. This was healthy. The scope of freedom of information was precisely to encourage the government to be more open and transparent by giving statutory rights for access to information and official records - from the need to know to the right to know.

The latter right had existed in other countries for several years. Malta should therefore learn from their experiences.

The areas subject to access to information should be government departments, public corporations, the police, the armed forces, local authorities, schools, universities and others.

There were two ways for this to be done in Malta: by giving people the right to access information they wanted to have, as long as it was not statutorily banned, and by imposing certain statutory obligations on the entities involved to give information to the public as a matter of routine, even without being asked.

What needed to be covered in such a law was the subject of wide debate everywhere. Should there be a right to access even official records?

For access to information to be real there should be a good amount of flexibility, including the definition of "records". But not every record should be freely accessible to the public at large. Even departments in their public roles could have information on activities that were not actually public.

What the Freedom of Information Act should not do was to disadvantage the government in the carrying out of its administration. There were two types of exemptions in the UK: the first category of exemptions involved public interest cases in which the keeping back of information could be more important than the release of such information. If one did not agree with such an official decision one could appeal to a responsible officer.

There were also absolute exemptions, such as in security matters, court records, parliamentary privileges, confidential or personal information, commercial information and information which could prejudice police investigations, among others.

The Freedom of Information Act in the UK did not cover Parliament, possibly because information could be given through parliamentary questions. However this should not be a right available to the privileged few, and the people at large too should have the right to question.

Dr de Marco said the Freedom of Information Act should be an exercise in changing the mentality in favour of active disclosure. Certain information should be made public even if nobody asked for it. It could shed light on the reasons for the formulation and exercise of certain policies of government departments.

This was a law that the government should take all necessary steps to enact. In so doing it would be showing its maturity in the protection of human rights through access to information.