October 23, 2008
Public officials from China’s Hunan Province at UW to study public records law
A group of public officials from Hunan Province in China is visiting the UW this week to learn about how Washington state’s Freedom of Information law works, particularly in regard to records held by large public universities. The visit is just one stop on a tour the delegation is taking to learn about open government. Sponsored by the Asia Foundation, the trip included stops in Sacramento and San Francisco, Calif., as well as Olympia, Wash.
“We were included because the consultant working with the Chinese thinks we have the best Freedom of Information program of any university in the country,” said Eliza Saunders, director of the Office of Public Records and Open Public Meetings.
One of the reasons the Hunan delegation is interested in open government is as a means of bringing more business to their province, which is in the less prosperous interior of the country, Saunders said.
“The province wants to pass an Administrative Procedures Law, including Freedom of Information, to make things more transparent and efficient. The central government has said this could be a model for the country as a whole.”
During a half-day session on Friday, Oct. 24, the Chinese will hear first from the Washington Coalition for Open Government. Then Saunders and Barbara Benson, director of Records Management Services at the University, will give a presentation on how the Freedom of Information law works with laws concerning records retention.
“Freedom of Information laws are meaningless without records retention, because people could simply shred records they didn’t want the public to see,” Saunders said. She said Freedom of Information programs have been a challenge at some universities, because people there often don’t think of themselves as state employees. But university records are subject to requests under Freedom of Information laws, and universities can be sued if they don’t provide them.
This isn’t the first time Saunders has gotten involved in international work in this area. She’s worked with the international Conference of Information Commissioners in the area of university records. And as a member of the Global Affairs Committee for the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws, she’s worked with Mexico on its Freedom of Information law, which she said is better than the one in the United States.
“They just enacted their law in 2005, so they were able to look at laws around the world and choose the best elements of each,” she said.
The Chinese delegation visiting the UW includes six officials of the Hunan provincial government, three from Xintian County government and three from Leiyang City government.
Saunders said it’s an honor to lend her expertise on Freedom of Information. “When a country wants to make its government more open to citizens, you have to support that,” she said.
