THE BRAZILIAN INFORMATION ACCESS LAW COMPLIANCE IN MUNICIPALITIES OF BELO HORIZONTE METROPOLITAN REGION

The current research purposes discussing brazilian Information Access Law (LAI) compliance within 34 municipalities composing Belo Horizonte Metropolitan Area (RMBH). The study main goals are to identify positives and negatives factors for LAI compliance and to check whenever current transparency practices are aligned with public accountability principles. The methodology will use descriptive and exploratory analysis, such as employing documentary research. An adapted online pool of the Brazilian Transparency Level (Escala Brasil Transparente) (EBT) was applied from 07/05/2018 to 05/21/2018 to Belo Horizonte metropolitan municipalities to assess: LAI law current practices; level of active and passive transparency, Information Systems for Citizens (SIC) assessment. Although LAI makes a dialogue between institutions and society possible, providing full conditions for citizens to participate and control government political and decision making reveals being a great challenge, once current research results endorse that surveyed public municipalities surveyed must improve its transparency policy. Besides an satisfactory LAI politics, compliance level related to active and passive transparency are below expected standard, in particularly regarding updating data and public responsiveness to citizen information requests, revealing an urgent need of information management mechanisms development and a cultural change relate to public data disposal and displays to finally be in compliance with constitutional principles.