Lobbying: the challenges to 10 years of the law

Almost a decade after the implementation of the Lobby Law in our country, the Integrity Division of the OECD made an official visit to Chile in order to collaborate in the development of the National Public Integrity Strategy and evaluate this national regulation on lobbying and influence on decision-making that has been pioneering at a global level. 
To make its assessment, the mission met, among others, with parliamentarians, lobbyists, academics and public officials who interact with the system. In these meetings, important spaces for consensus on necessary changes in the matter were identified. 
At the time, the current regulation of lobbying sought to make transparent the influence of particular interests in public decision-making and allow equal treatment to those who carry out this work. Thus, it was established that all those who request hearings seeking to influence a decision, must do so through a transparent system; also obliging the authorities to register such hearings, as well as the donations they receive and the trips they make. 
To date, thanks to this legislation there is a record of more than 600 thousand hearings, 540 thousand trips and 52 thousand donations that can be consulted by citizens, in addition to the payrolls of interest managers in which are integrated, in turn, dozens of companies dedicated specifically to lobbying and other professionals who have made this search to influence decision-making, an area of development and advocacy.
Great advances in transparency that, however, have revealed that a review is necessary. The current law leaves in darkness the holding of numerous hearings between authorities or requested by authorities; it does not provide for duties of integrity and transparency for those who exert influence; It does not establish rules of post-employment conflicts of interest, and has a precarious control system, among other shortcomings. 
In addition, it was a regulatory framework designed for a way of exerting influence that has been overcome by reality amid technological advances and institutional changes in both the public and private worlds. What was sought to regulate in the legislative discussion between 2008 and 2014 has changed and today we face a much more complex phenomenon. 
In the search to confront abusive and non-transparent practices in public decision-making processes, in addition to strengthening our democracy and citizens’ trust in institutions, from the Presidential Commission on Public Integrity and Transparency we are working to update this regulatory framework.
This year the OECD will approve a new recommendation on lobbying that aims precisely to take charge of these new complexities of influence in the twenty-first century, so those issued by the same international organization in 2010 will also be obsolete. 
Anticipating this balance, President Gabriel Boric committed in his government program and his last Public Account to move towards a new regulation of the subject, improving the provisions of the current Law No. 20,730. 
The discussion process that will accompany this bill is a perfect space to channel the concerns that the different actors involved have expressed and will provide a unique opportunity to maintain our leadership position in this matter, live up to these new standards that will be official soon and take charge of a constantly changing reality.
 

Original source in Spanish