summary of declaration on parliamentary openness

[massitoo]

#59
https://sinarproject.org/resources/declaration-on-parliamentary-openness

The Declaration on Parliamentary Openness was launched on September 15, 2012, in Rome. It’s basically a call for parliaments to be more transparent, make it easier for people to access information, and actually involve citizens in how laws are made. It came together after a lot of international input and public feedback, and the idea is to keep the conversation going between parliaments and civil society to strengthen democracy.
The declaration says that parliamentary information belongs to the public. It should be free to access, easy to reuse, and simple enough for anyone to understand. It also talks about promoting civic education, protecting independent civil society groups, and regularly publishing clear details on what parliaments do, who the members are, their budgets, votes, and reports, while also making sure there are safeguards for integrity and against conflicts of interest.
It also pushes for better use of technology, sharing data in open formats that people can search, link, and reuse, and making it available through different channels. The whole point is to make parliaments more open, inclusive, and accountable — not just in theory, but in ways people can actually see and use.