Fewer complaints or fewer opportunities to complain?
The official figures are clear: citizen challenges for refusals to provide information from the federal government fell by 60% in the first year of the new system. We went from more than 15 thousand cases with the INAI to just 6 thousand with “Transparency for the People.”
The government presents it as a success. I, with my experience in law and journalism, ask myself: are there really fewer reasons to complain or did they just set the bar higher to be able to do so?
The context that no one mentions at the press conference
While celebrating this reduction, only 18 states have adjusted their transparency laws. Fourteen remain non-compliant. How can a system be more effective if it is not even fully implemented?
Accountability specialists have warned that the decrease could be related to greater difficulty in accessing challenge mechanisms.
There it is. The key phrase. It’s not that people are more satisfied—it’s that the road to complaining became steeper.
The debate remains open: simplification versus mistrust. The government talks about savings; Critics point out disparate criteria in the responses. I remember too many cases where “simplifying” meant making controls disappear.
Historical memory hurts: every time they concentrate power in fewer hands, someone loses. And they are almost never those who already have the power.
My father, a lawyer, lost against a company with better legal resources. I learned then that the truth needs journalists, not just lawyers. Today that truth seems harder to achieve—or at least, harder to challenge when it is denied to you.
