In one year, Flávio Dino achieves the worst transparency index in history in the Justice department

The Ministry of Justice, under the command of Flávio Dino, broke a record number of denials of requests for access to public data alleging secrecy. The Panel of the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU) pointed out that the department, this year, denied more requests made via the Access to Information Law (LAI) since 2012, when the rule came into force. Dino will leave command of the ministry to take up the position of minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) in February.

The department justified that the increase in denials occurred due to requests for investigations into the acts of January 8, according to investigations by the Estadão. “Such acts led to the opening of police investigations and other procedures, which is the reason for many requests that were rejected,” said the ministry.

The LAI was made official in 2011 and allows the population to request and have access to public data from federal, state and municipal agencies. “Access to information provided for in the caput does not include information relating to scientific or technological research and development projects whose secrecy is essential to the security of society and the State”, says the law.

In 2023, the Ministry of Justice denied 16.6% of requests made via LAI. The result of denials is greater than that recorded by Dino’s predecessors. Under the command of Anderson Torres, the ministry denied 7.7% of requests for information via LAI; with André Mendonça, 12.2% were rejected; and during Sergio Moro’s period, 6.7% of requests were denied.

In the government of Michel Temer (MDB), the ministry denied 3.5% of the demands. During the government of Dilma Rousseff (PT), from May 2012 – when the LAI came into force – 3.7% of requests were denied.

Of the total requests denied by Dino’s department, 45.3% were considered confidential data, 9.72% were denied for recording personal data and 5.67% for being “disproportionate or unreasonable”.

Ministry of Justice received “Cadeado de Chumbo” award

The Ministry of Justice and Public Security received the “Cadeado de Chumbo 2023” award, at the end of November this year, for the denial of responses to requests via LAI. The “award” chose the public bodies that provided the worst responses to requests made via the Access to Information Law (LAI).

According to the organizers of the award, the request for information that earned the “Cadeado de Chumbo” for the department was made on January 3rd of this year and requested the themes of the intelligence reports prepared by the Secretariat of Integrated Operations (Seopi) between January 2019 and December 2022.

After accepting the appeals and determining that the ministry should present the data, the CGU reconsidered and authorized the ministry not to disclose the requested information. The ministry considered that the request for information was unreasonable as it did not meet the “public interests of the State in favor of society”. Furthermore, the ministry pointed out that intelligence information is restricted from access by law.

The vote to choose the institutions that failed in terms of transparency included the participation of society and was promoted by the Forum for the Right to Access Public Information in conjunction with the Network for Transparency and Social Participation (RETPS).