The Archives: The Propitious Environment to Information Access. Notes About their Origins

Abstract

The recognition of public policies related to accountability, transparency and access to information such as rights of the administered is, from a historical point of view very distant in time, in contrast with its effective implementation that does not go beyond the last fifty years in some countries. Even before the arrival of modern democracy access restricted and limited to administrative documents was a widespread trend. It was common practice the secrecy of the institutions and the concealment of their information by viewing it as something particular and of their property, but in addition, because through the documents in which it rested could legitimize their power and support of their acts, so that to engage in new forms of government did not argue for a simple way for the companies that wanted to begin a process of transformation. Today the accountability, transparency and access to information are part of the political discourse in most of the countries of the world. Especially in the last decade has emphasized the issue more vigorously. But this does not mean that it had always been in the same manner. Thus, this document aims to show the development that have tended these public policies as it is that the Archives have always been present as guarantors of these.