According to the Journalist Statute (Assembleia da República, 1999: art. 8), the right of journalists to access information sources must be guaranteed by the organs of public administration, and whoever refuses that access may be legally prosecuted “with urgency”. This applies not only to journalists but in the name of “transparency of public affairs”, everyone has the right of access to administrative documents from the public sector, with “no need to invoke any particular interest” (Assembleia da República, 2007).
Because the law is sometimes disrespected, or because the interpretations of what falls under the category of restricted information may be divergent, a special commission works next to the Parliament (since 1995) as an instance of appeal. Every year, about 400 complaints are brought to this Commission of Access to Administrative Documents, several of them presented by journalists.
Traditionally, the Portuguese public administration tended to be closed off and keep most of its documents secret, but this behaviour is slowly changing. Sometimes journalists complain that public administration, although not formally forbidding access to this or that information, raises practical problems of consultation, making them seek what they are looking for among hundreds of files. This is why the work of the aforementioned Commission is important.
