ARGENTINA: Milei seeks to restrict freedom of information

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On 3 September Argentina’s President Javier Milei issued a decree restricting access to public information, triggering criticism from the media and civil society organisations.

Analysis:

During his first nine months in office, President Milei has had a conflictive relationship with Argentina’s media organisations, refusing to grant a single press conference and calling journalists “liars”, “corrupt” and “extortionists”. The presidential decree published in the official gazette and intended to regulate the law on access to public information is indeed highly restrictive. It allows the government to withhold information about officials which it deems to be “private” as well as to withhold information used prior to decision-making such as working papers or minutes of meetings.

• Over the last seven years Argentina has had an Access to Public Information Law on the statute books which allows citizens to make freedom of information requests. The effect of the new decree is to radically widen the acceptable criteria for denying such requests.
• The decree says that information containing private data that is “generated, obtained, transformed, controlled or held” by drawing on private sources, or where there is no public interest in its dissemination, cannot be considered public.
• Freedom of information campaigners say it will no longer be possible to request information on who has visited the presidential residence in Olivos, for instance, as this is deemed by the new decree to “affect the privacy of public officials, especially when they relate to the typically domestic sphere”.
• Journalists point out however that it was only through freedom of information requests about domestic arrangements that the public found out that former president Alberto Fernández (2019-2023) had attended a birthday party in violation of coronavirus (Covid-19) restrictions.
• Asked in a recent television interview whether he would hold a press conference, Milei said he would, but only on condition that all journalists attending should present public declarations of assets so that “they may be subjected to the public scorn to which journalists subject the rest of society”.

Looking Ahead: Over 60 lobby groups have issued a statement rejecting the presidential decree, and it is likely that it will face a legal challenge.

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