Transparency in government was recognised as such a key element to the preservation of freedom and democracy that the United Nations General Assembly, in its very first session in 1946, adopted Resolution 59 (I), which opens by stating “Freedom of Information is a fundamental human right and is the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated.”

That profound sentiment continues to be reaffirmed decades later, as when the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression stated in his 1995 report to the UN Commission on Human Rights, “Freedom will be bereft of all effectiveness if the people have no access to information. Access to information is basic to the democratic way of life. The tendency to withhold information from the people at large is therefore to be strongly checked.”

One of the principal tools to support these ends is freedom of information legislation. Such laws give people the right to any official information unless the government or public authority can show that disclosure would cause real harm to essential interests such as defence, security, law enforcement or privacy. Freedom of information legislation permits citizens to exercise some control over their government and to scrutinise its actions, thus providing a safeguard against corruption and abuse of power.

Only where effective freedom of information laws exist can open government truly be possible, and only in such nations can there be a fully functioning democracy that protects the citizenry from arbitrary and unjust government action.

In the name of upholding democracy and advancing human rights, churches of Scientology have for many years vigorously advocated freedom of information, and have played a key role in helping to bring about such legislation in many parts of the world. The reasoning is simple enough:

In 1951, L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Scientology religion, wrote that, “It will be seen that the democratic area... postulates a belief in the goodness of men and the good sense of men in council. It postulates the belief that men should be free to decide things for themselves. It outlaws tyranny as undesirable, and relegates government to the service of the group rather than the group to the service of the government.”