Council for Transparency works at “half speed”

For just over a week, the movement began before the sun rises in the premises of the Council for Transparency on Morandé Street in the commune of Santiago. This is because the only formula that the counselors have found, so far, to achieve the quorum and move forward with the work, is to meet very early every morning.
“We have suspended almost everything. It is a very precarious situation because we are taking out the most urgent. It’s not just that Natalia can’t attend, nobody can do anything, we can’t get sick. We are all putting our best will, understanding the different occupations of each one, “says the president of the Council, Francisco Leturia.
This “rearrangement” of the schedules is due to the fact that in one week the Council for Transparency (CPLT), “lost” half of its members.
On March 6, the Expert Commission of the new constituent process began its activities and with it the counselor of the CPLT, Natalia González Bañados, who was appointed by the UDI to integrate that body. González Bañados had informed the Council about the need to be absent from the sessions without diet, in the ordinary session of January 26, as recorded in the minutes of the session. In the same instance, the Council – then composed of Francisco Leturia, Gloria de la Fuente, Natalia González and Bernardo Navarrete – took cognizance of the announcement and it was agreed that, in case of absence of any of the other three directors, González should attend to comply with the quorum that the law requires to meet. All good until then.
But on March 10, the cabinet change reframed the situation. The replacement of the senior staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, installed as undersecretary of Foreign Affairs the lawyer Gloria de la Fuente (PS), who until then worked in the CPLT.
In the CPLT they had to react quickly because there are no substitute directors, “we should have, but the law is a bit old, it was made when nobody imagined how much the issue of transparency was going to grow. It is one of the things that must be modified and that is in the reform bill, “explains Leturia.
From the Council they have expressed the urgency before the Government and the Senate.
Right to transparency and information
The law states that the directors are appointed by the president and must be ratified by 2/3 of the senators in office. They last six years in office and can be renewed for three-year partialities.
In normal times, when periods run out, two people are appointed. But when it comes to a vacancy you can be replaced or wait until the end of the period that corresponded to the one who retires. In this case, the period of Gloria de la Fuente ended at the end of the year, when Francisco Leturia’s also ends. So since there is a political negotiation involved — it is a PS-PDP quota — it is possible that the senators who must be elected prefer to wait until the two councilors have to be appointed at once. “If there are two, the binomial logic works. At the moment there seems to be no incentive for both sides, they may think: ‘there is no reason to name if they are working and you can wait until the end of the year, because also on May 7 (in just over a month) Natalia González will be released’. If they do it immediately they will have to negotiate for another appointment and things are already tangled… That’s where the matter may be stuck,” says a source.
What is clear is that she should be a woman for parity.
In any case, history records that appointments are often delayed. In the case of Natalia González and Bernardo Navarrete, in 2020, it was delayed so much that the Council was not working for more than two months. Something similar happened when Francisco Leturia and Gloria de la Fuente were appointed in 2017.
Beyond the delays due to the conveniences, negotiations and quotas of the political parties, it is not optimal that the CPLT cannot meet due to lack of quorum or as is happening these days; It does so at the expense of the “goodwill” of its members, what is at stake is a constitutional right: the right to transparency and access to public information for all people.

Original source in Spanish