National Diet Library Newsletter
No. 116, October 2000
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Presentation by the guest speaker of the APLAP Conference
Democracy Links: Parliamentary Information Services
Patricio
Aranda Torres
Director, Library
of Congress of the Republic of Peru
Abstruct
Introduction
Networks
and the Media
The
Peruvian Experience
The
Library of Congress
Conclusions
BIBLIOGRAPHY
One of the aspects strengthening legitimacy of the Legislature is the citizens' right to exercise a passive control over the activities conducted by their representatives. This control is achieved through information technology developed in each Parliament and made available to as many citizens as possible. Legitimacy of Legislatures should not only be through elections, but also through a constant assessment of its work by the citizens. Electoral propaganda through the media spreads views and comments which may even determine political results. These should not be the only information channels. Explosion of communication networks has given rise to a new form of interactive citizens participation.
This work suggests the ways through which citizens may attain a better participation through parliamentary information systems, and illustrates the success of such a proposal by referring to the experience of the Congress of the Republic of Peru.
Not all countries that were left behind during the boom of the Industrial Revolution - currently called "developing countries", or more recently called "emerging markets" - should necessarily be adversely affected by the current "digital revolution". We should recall that not all current prevailing societies, were so in the past, and not all emerging societies have always been in such situation. We are all acquainted with the results of the worldwide globalization process including, but not limiting to, the integration of financial markets, the increased significance of the Asia Pacific region, the European unification, the transformation of the former Soviet block, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the association of third world economies into an interdependent system. Within this context, information units attached to Legislatures can play an important role in social integration since they are able to mount interactive computer networks disseminating important information to a broad cross-section of society as well as offering a direct line of communication with political representatives. The development of these technologies has in fact created a new means of communication and has generated some important social changes in such varied areas as gender relations, environmental awareness and even political systems, introducing the cyberculture of late 20th century, increasing distance and conditions in which time and space were organized. Information technology has the capacity, where it can be made widely accessible, to impact most spheres of human activity, that is, data banks, discussion forums, financial operations, educational consultations, leisure resources, new interpersonal relations, possibilities to find a couple, work options, videoconferences, among such other applications that may effectively contribute to shape the society of which it is part.
During the period of the industrial society, the only possible information came from radio and television, and these were managed unidirectionally without the possibility of acting between transmitters and receivers. Currently, the multiplication of institutions, people, organizations, governmental agencies and other social representatives have allowed the multiplication of information generators, transmitters, and receivers on the web. In this sense, Internet has become a rather social institution that allows the states not only to implement an accelerated process of technological modernization, but also apply this and other means to interact with citizens and allow for real (virtual) citizens participation.
In order to achieve this objective, it is necessary to use systems leading to improving the use of electronic communication at world level. The major difference between audiovisual information and the electronic medium is the opportunity for interaction provided by the latter. Thus, many authors already refer to the existence of the informational society as a new way of development where technology is the source of productivity generating knowledge, information processing and symbol communication. The main activity is the accumulation of knowledge, an increased complexity in information processing, which allows data to be organized and readily communicated.
Parliamentary libraries and information services can take this opportunity to contribute to the strengthening of democracy by providing citizens with direct information on the political process, thus meeting the society's need for transparency regarding policy making. The legitimization of the parliamentary institution is fundamental to the democratic law-making process. This legitimacy relies upon the citizens' knowledge and acceptance of legislative activities, and it is vital that the parliament should develop mechanisms that allow the use of technology to transmit such information to the citizens.
Effective policy making is dependent upon communication. Political manifestos tend to be compared with the current realities facing a community, resulting in a judgment by the constituencies on the likely success of the measures outlined and their repercussion. To develop a relationship between authorities and citizens, there must be representation and communication. All of the political groups and parties should convey their strategies through similar technological means if they want them to reach their constituencies. This would enable the interaction with a considerable number of citizens who, through the use of the same medium, may have access to lawmakers.
Those political parties that are still based on political and organizational strategies of the industrial era observe the diminution of their autonomy due to the strong dependency on these information flows. In other words, the atomization of interests in societies allows the media to gain influence since their simple messages provide a sense of identity for a huge conglomerate lacking a common referential basis. Those who are qualified users of the media have more possibilities than those who lack that communicative talent. The outcome of this situation is evident in Latin America, where this represents an average of 13 hours of television watching, and where politicians and parties turn into consumer goods instead of philosophers, educators or managers.
This proves the communication needs of those in charge of the decision-making process. If they do not do it, there may be a crisis in the democratic process in this information era, thus showing the necessity to generate information within the parliamentary organization. Generators of information within parliaments, who are used to providing impartial and accurate information, are able to create the appropriate environment to introduce these new forms of direct communication with citizens, without the filter commonly used by audiovisual media.
This undermining has frequently caused some sectors of society to cease taking an informed interest in their government and the consequential fragmentation of the political system. The recovery or legitimization of democracy may be achieved through the opportunity offered by electronic communication to increase political participation at large, and, in particular, horizontal communication among citizens, reversing the fragmentation produced by manipulative interests of the media.
Information systems of the Congress of the Republic of Peru have been designed to achieve two objectives. On the one hand, the purpose is to encourage citizens communication towards parliamentarians in order to express their social needs, and, on the other, it is being sought to generate direct communication lines with the citizens, circumventing any bias or misinterpretation from the traditional audiovisual media. The Peruvian Virtual Parliament, setting out the commencement of the said purpose, created by Doctor Carlos Torres y Torres Lara and implemented by Doctor José Cevasco Piedra, is a system through which the Congress of the Republic is made interactively available to citizens and institutions - both within Peru and abroad - with a view to encouraging their participation in the different activities conducted by the Congress. This form of participation enables citizens to interact directly with the legislative institution from any computer connected to the World Wide Web, and to propose by this means legislative initiatives, demands, views or suggestions. In brief, this is a mechanism striving to consolidate the bases of the democratic system in Peru, since it is fundamentally based on the participation of each citizen and institution, making possible a fluid political communication and an efficient decision making process within the legislative sphere. Citizens are able to gain information, and make their views known on particular bills; submit direct petitions to their congressmen or the respective committees; participate in discussion forums, or propose to conduct them. Each citizen is previously registered and receives an access code in order to ensure his or her participation. Finally, it offers a friendship club where students have the opportunity to take part in civil culture and political knowledge contests from their school booths, witness congressional sessions and visit the Congress, even if they come from the interior of the country. Within the audiovisual information systems developed by the Peruvian Congress (radio and television press), two are to be mentioned: one is the Radio Program "Gathering Center with the Congress" which weekly broadcasts the congressional activities and discusses specific issues one hour every week. It should be emphasized that this program has a regular audience, competing with other programs exclusively musical broadcast at the same time, which suggests that there exists an unsatisfied demand among the society with respect to congressional information. This program can be obtained from the Internet in MP3 format which is a digital audio and video format widely used to distribute audio (music) and video through the Internet and by any other resources. The other information system is the television program "Seat 122", the number of which represents the seat of the citizen in the floor, and that represents the spirit of this program. Every week and in a open signal television channel, not only are displayed the news on the Congress work, but also we prepare audiovisual reports of journalistic nature on debate issues in the Congress, or issues proposed by the citizens. Each television program can be retrieved also in Real Player trough the Internet.
Results from the parliament's electronic voting system are also reported over the Internet allowing citizens to have access to accurate information about their representatives' performance and attendance. Digital press systems have enabled the development of direct communication not only with citizens, but also with information chiefs of the mass media, so that exactness in the information disseminated is achieved. In this sense, the electronic newspaper, El Heraldo provides real time information about congressmen's varied activities, agreements, discussions and statements. Likewise, La Gaceta del Congreso makes public the agenda of the committees sessions and of the Plenary of Congress and is distributed electronically to those citizens interested in receiving a copy. It is also distributed free of charge every Sunday together with a major national circulation newspaper. Sessions of the Plenary and the Permanent Commission are transcribed and published on the web in almost real time, through our Debate Journal. This text system is linked to another image system called Virtual Television through which a session, in a video segment, can be retrieved via a certain type of search that can be made by main subject, date of the session or name of the parliamentarian.
The Digital Archive System for Peruvian Legislation is available on the web and allows access to all laws, legislative resolutions, supreme decrees and other legal regulations through two blocks: laws numbered from year 1904 up to date; and non - numbered laws from 1821 to 1904 as well as international treaties signed since 1824. The archive employs PDF format and prints of the documents can be directly obtained.
Since 1997, our Bills System enables inquirers to refer to a status report of all those bills submitted which have been enacted, or been filed. The system, developed in Lotus Notes format, permits the search and retrieval of information by date of presentation, number of bill, congressman submitting the bill, political party or parliamentary bench, and even by committee in charge of passing judgement. It is important to point out that each of the 27 committees has available an individual web page, which is different in each legislative period, where not only approved bills or information on members composing the said committee can be referred to, but also the work presented by specialists invited to the sessions or to the extra-parliamentary hearings carried out in the interior of the country.
The Web Page also provides detailed information on Congressmen's travels abroad and we also have a word search system through which one may enter a word on the constitution web page and the system will retrieve all results concerning that word.
Finally, specific distribution lists relating to different areas of interest allow citizens interested in particular topics to receive specialized information on relevant subjects. In this respect, we have a list of laws including a complete text of every law that is passed; a list of bills, including a complete text of every bill that is submitted; a list of Press News including all press notes released by the Congress; a list of photographs of congressional activities including JPEG images, distributed by e-mail to the information editors of the mass media being those most frequently used by the media. Another list informs about web news, and another, prepared by the Juridical Counsel, sends a daily legal summary.
Then, we have information compiled by the Library, (including information announcements providing citizens with the possibility of requesting free copies), links of interest on the World Wide Web, invitations to conferences of distinguished specialists in all subjects of national interest, and announcements of the latest books published by the Editorial Fund of the Congress, or working documents of the committees. This information is sent through a list with 10,000 users, and considering that the number of those connected to the Congress via Internet is currently about 20,000.
The Library of the Peruvian Congress, was restructured in July 1997 and forms part of the collection of the former Public Library and Legislative Library, the latter being the collection, in its turn, of the earlier House of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic. Although there is not an exact date of the two first libraries foundation, we know that the first Congress legislators of 1822 already had a basic collection of doctrine books and law digests dating back to 'colonial laws' or the so-called 'Indian laws', the first compilation of which dating back from the late 17th century and still preserved in the Library research room.
The fundamental objective of the Library is to gather, classify and disseminate materials and services to assist the decision-making process in Congress. A major task currently underway is the expansion of electronic services, involving the development of internal resources, such as an automated search system for reference material, laws, bills, decisions, debate journals, as well as other types of information provided on an Intranet and on the Web Site for the Congress. In addition to the Reference and Consultation Room, the Newspapers and Periodicals Library and the various special collections of the Library, there is also an Electronic Information Center within the Library. This Center is equipped with 18 PCs from which users of the Library have free access to the Congressional Intranet databases and the Internet. The Library currently has over 140,000 volumes including complete collections of newspapers such as "El Comercio", since 1839, and "El Peruano" since 1836, as well as our Debates Journal, which is a faithful transcription of every word uttered in the Floor by all Deputies and Senators since 1866 to date. The loan system is electronically controlled and internal users of the Library can reserve books from their office.
The total number of the Library staff is 22, including 9 research and subject analyst staff, 7 professional librarians, 3 translators, 2 lawyers and 1 sociologist. The Library's electronic services are constantly updated by our staff, and these and other staff provide the specialized computer search services.
The role of the Library in relation to the Congress web site is to be the physical threshold to all these services for the citizens and serves as the guiding system for the internal services developed in the Congress of the Republic.
Currently, the exclusion of certain sectors of the society from networked information is unavoidable at present, since not all of them have the facilities required for access. The question is: "How do we generate this sort of participation in social sectors which are not connected to the network?". Currently, in Peru the system of public booths has spread as a business idea, and attract 60% of the Peruvian population connecting to internet to under USD 1.00 per hour. Similarly, the Peruvian Congress has installed free public booths and has a special program entitled "Itinerant Parliament" which involves the establishment of a special public service environment providing information about the organization and functions of the Congress, and a variety of participation access points which the legislature has put at the citizens' disposal, including publicly available Internet booths, so that citizens may have access to this service openly and free of charge. Within this context, parliamentary libraries and congressional information services can encourage more participation and understanding from the general public concerning the activities of their congressional representatives, who finally represent people's feelings.
The way in which we must introduce ourselves into this digital revolution, which has given way to the society of information, is by doing it ourselves, without waiting for the approval of resources for that purpose. The more information we can obtain through electronic means the greater the importance they will take on. The essential thing is to collect new ideas and implement them with the available resources, and afterwards, look for financial support, thus making it possible for our politicians understand the essence of the digital revolution, and built the relevant links to democracy.
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