巴西公民告政府不公开信息，55.9%诉讼由个人提起，中资企业需警惕合规风险

Pedro Colombini Divulgação Ordinary citizens are the ones who most often take requests to the courts to enforce the Access to Information Act (LAI). A survey by legal platform Jusbrasil, obtained exclusively by Valor, shows that 55.9% of all lawsuits in Brazil with decisions on the issue, issued between 2012 and May of this year, were filed by individuals. The Public Prosecutor’s Office ranked second, with 13.6% of requests. The study analyzed 22,700 decisions issued by courts across the country since 2012, the first full year the law was in force. In 9,900 of them, there is an indication that the government did not respond to the request, forcing the citizen or public agency to turn to the legal system. In 11,600 cases, it was possible to identify a previous attempt to obtain the information through administrative channels. According to lawyer Isabella Vazzoler, of Innocenti Advogados, ordinary citizens depend on the public administration to resolve countless everyday issues, such as tax, social security, regulatory, and activity-licensing matters. “Despite this, they end up being pushed away from the public system, which has bureaucratic and poorly transparent procedures,” she says. “There is a lack of public policy to instruct the population, which often does not even have the technology needed—increasingly so—to access public portals.” The most recurring topics in these cases, according to Pedro Colombini, institutional relations manager at Jusbrasil, are civil-servant pay (4,313 cases) and budget spending (4,113 cases). This information should be public, he says, but is not sufficiently disclosed, forcing citizens to turn to the legal system. “This is a very relevant symptom of transparency problems in Brazil,” Colombini says. “The legal system is playing a role it should not have to play, because the government itself already has a duty to allow access to information.” Active transparency and structuring also appear in many cases in the legal system—when citizens challenge the government for failing to disclose information it had a duty to disclose (4,036 lawsuits). Requests to disclose administrative proceedings and opinions follow (4,026 cases). Thais Matallo Cordeiro, a partner at Machado Meyer, notes that the survey reveals a pattern of avoidable failures. “When thousands of cases reach the courts because of silence or omission, the problem ceases to be only legal and also becomes one of public management, administrative culture, and information governance,” she says. Colombini recalls that the Federal Supreme Court (STF) ruled on the LAI as early as 2015, when it struck down the confidentiality rule for administrative proceedings at the National Land Transportation Agency (ANTT) and the National Waterway Transportation Agency (Antaq). In that case, reporting Justice Luis Roberto Barroso, now retired, observed that the rule under the 1988 Constitution is the publicity of state actions, which should be set aside in only two situations: when confidentiality is essential to the security of the state and society and to protect people’s intimacy, private life, honor, and image. According to Barroso, these exceptions were regulated primarily by the Access to Information Act (Law 12527 of 2011) and must be interpreted restrictively, in accordance with the principle of proportionality (ADI 5371). Cesar Roenick, a partner at Roenick Fernandes Advogados, notes that the volume of decisions is not that significant considering the universe of requests. In 2022, when the LAI turned ten, the Office of the Comptroller General (CGU) had counted about 1 million requests through the Fala.BR platform. Even so, the high degree of state omission and administrative silence is concerning, the specialist says. “A significant share of the lawsuits could probably have been avoided through a timely administrative response, saving judiciary resources and optimizing processes.” Among the public entities most often sued, municipalities lead by far, appearing as defendants in 11,477 decisions, according to the survey. States were sued in 4,810 cases and the federal government in another 4,684. Marcos Meira, founding partner of M. Meira Advogados, says the large volume is justified by the greater number of municipalities (5,500) and by the fact that municipal public services are closest to citizens. “Many municipalities still face structural and staffing limitations in properly complying with the law,” he says. “Reducing litigation depends on strengthening active transparency, training public agents, and improving service channels for access-to-information requests,” he adds. Among the more than 22,000 decisions analyzed, only 516 resulted in sanctions. Most fines were set at R$1,000. According to Roenick, in practice, “withholding information costs nothing.” “When noncompliance does not produce relevant institutional or personal consequences, the incentive to change administrative practices remains limited,” he says. Most cases sought access to data (86.7% of lawsuits); the remaining cases sought removal of information. Most decisions authorized full access (10,761 cases) or partial access (4,964 cases) to the requested data. Access was denied in only 3,777 cases. The remaining cases had an undetermined outcome, according to Jusbrasil’s analysis. One case involves a citizen who asked the municipality of Jarinu, São Paulo, for access to information about administrative procedures authorizing tree cutting. The municipality denied the request, citing the need to protect personal data, as the authorizations concerned third-party properties. However, according to the lower court and the São Paulo Court of Justice, the LAI provision must prevail. Article 5 of the law says it is “the duty of the state to guarantee the right of access to information, which shall be provided through objective and swift in the remaining cases, requests were madeprocedures, in a transparent, clear manner and in language that is easy to understand” (case 001066-94.2025.8.26.0301). Translation: Todd Harkin