Centre for Law and Democracy

06/16/2026

The Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) has made a submission to the Canadian federal government’s consultation on its regular five-yearly review of the Access to Information Act (ATIA). Our comments are largely focused on law reform needs, given that the ATIA only earns 95 out of a possible 150 points on the RTI Rating (63%), putting it in an unimpressive 47th place from among the 142 countries globally with right to information laws.

The CLD submission applauds a number of the government proposals, such as for measures to render the binding decisions of the Information Commissioner enforceable and for imposing a “duty to document” on public authorities. But we also have a number of criticisms, including the following:

-Three of the four proposals regarding time limits seek to extend them, mostly unjustifiably, while there is no serious proposal to address the very major problem of delays under the Act.

-There are a number of proposals to add new, non-harm-tested exceptions, while otherwise positive proposals on a public interest override and sunset clauses are far too limited.

-A wholly unwarranted proposal seeks to limit the scope of the ATIA to “official records” – those which, according to the officials who oversee records, contribute to “transparency and accountability” – and to records which are held in “official repositories”, despite ongoing problems with officials doing government business on private devices.


But the biggest single problem with the government proposals is that they simply fail to address a number of serious shortcomings with the ATIA, including the limited scope of the Act, its overbroad regime of exceptions and the ineffective system of sanctions. The proposals include a number of interesting ideas to support access to information by Indigenous peoples, but these are not sufficiently developed to enable CLD to assess them properly.

The submission is available here (https://www.law-democracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Canada.RTI_.26-06.pdf) and the government proposals are available here (https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/services/access-information-privacy/modernizing-access-information/reviewing-access-information-act/2025-review-access-information-act/2025-review-access-information-act-policy-approaches.html).

06/09/2026

CLD's Toby Mendel will join a panel discussion tomorrow (Wednesday 10 June) from 1:30-3:00 at Dalhousie University in Halifax for the launch of the Dal. Law Policy Lab report "Think of the Children: The Policy Trade-offs of Digital Age Verification".

To register, click here:

Join the MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance for a panel discussion on the newest report from Dal Law's Policy Lab

06/02/2026

CLD's Toby Mendel has published an Open Government Partnership blog post with Joseph Foti on RTI simplification:

"Making Access Easier: Responsible Right to Information Simplification".

https://medium.com/ogp-horizons/making-access-easier-responsible-right-to-information-simplification-411a07b4369a

We seem to be in a moment of regulatory simplification. Can the right to information (RTI) benefit from simplification too?

04/22/2026

This Sunday, CLD's Toby Mendel will be speaking at a Northern Justice Watch event in Toronto on atrocity crimes. Details below:

https://www.facebook.com/njusticewatch/posts/pfbid02DKfFKJFo487qc3HzXTwjhbhhAhZpTb7MLBstG4FemLNgWSFErrPy8q8GVPaXzqVLl

News StatementsNorthern Justice Watch (NJW) Acknowledges Support from The Law Foundation of OntarioNorthern Justice Watch (NJW) proud to announce that The Law Foundation of Ontario has provided generous financial support for our “Legal Understanding and Victim Empowerment (LIVE) Project. This proj...

04/09/2026

CLD's Toby Mendel will participate in this virtual forum titled "Democracy Under Siege: Journalists on the Front Line" tomorrow (10 April) at 9:00 Mexico City time.

Automated translation via transcription into multiple languages will be available.

Register via the QR code below:

03/23/2026

The Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) has just launched a new, fully redesigned website, accessible at the same domain name, https://www.law-democracy.org. Key new features include a central, fully searchable CLD Resources Page, with all of CLD’s written work and online courses, as well as a central page for CLD news releases. The website also includes a section called Programmes, which highlights some key areas of CLD’s current work.

At the same time, the design of the new site means that URL links to documents from the previous site will no longer work. As such, you will need to search the website to find these resources if you wish to locate or link to them.

03/19/2026

[Le français suit.]

The Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) is today publicly launching its analysis of Morocco’s Law No. 31-13 on the Right of Access to Information. The analysis (available only in French) was prepared in the context of an upcoming parliamentary review of the current legislation. On CLD’s RTI Rating, which measures the strength of legal frameworks for the right to information (RTI), the current Moroccan law earns a score of 71 points out of a possible 150 (i.e 44%).

CLD’s analysis highlights that Morocco performs best in the categories of the right of access and the scope of the law, but struggles with request procedures (scoring only 37%) and sanctions and protections (scoring 38%).

CLD’s analysis is available in French here (https://www.law-democracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Morocco.RTI_.Mar26.final_.pdf) and its full RTI Rating of the legislation is available here (https://www.rti-rating.org/country-data/Morocco/).

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Le Centre pour le droit et la démocratie (CLD) lance aujourd'hui publiquement son analyse de la loi marocaine n° 31-13 relative au droit d'accès à l'information. L'analyse (disponible uniquement en français) a été préparée dans le cadre d'un prochain examen parlementaire de la législation actuelle.

Selon le RTI Rating du CLD, qui mesure la solidité des cadres juridiques pour le droit à l'information (RTI), la loi marocaine actuelle obtient un score de 71 points sur un total possible de 150 (soit 44 %).

L'analyse du CLD souligne que le Maroc obtient ses meilleurs résultats dans les catégories du droit d'accès et du champ d'application de la loi, mais qu'il éprouve des difficultés en ce qui concerne les procédures de demande (avec un score de seulement 37 %) ainsi que les sanctions et protections (38 %).

L'analyse du CLD est disponible en français ici (https://www.law-democracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Morocco.RTI_.Mar26.final_.pdf) et son évaluation complète de la législation selon le RTI Rating est disponible ici (https://www.rti-rating.org/country-data/Morocco/).

02/26/2026

The Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) has submitted an assessment of the draft Philippine Act Enabling the People’s Constitutional Right of Access to Information (Right to Information or RTI Bill) to the House Committee on Public Information, as that Committee is presently reviewing the RTI Bill.

The Philippines does well in terms of its guarantees of RTI, earning 83%, and the scope of coverage of the Bill is quite broad (73%) but in most other areas the Bill hovers around 60% and it drops to 40% in terms of the system of appeals.

The CLD submission contains numerous recommendations for improving the Bill, of which some of the most important are as follows:

-A broad review of the Bill for technical quality and simplicity should be undertaken to ensure that it is as clear and understandable as possible.

-The definitions of public authorities and information in the Bill should be simplified and broadened.

-The procedures for submitting and processing requests for information should be improved, so as to make them as simple and user friendly as possible.

-The standards in the RTI law should override secrecy provisions in other laws in case of conflict, rather than preserve them.

-The role of the RTI Commission in appeals should be clarified and its independence should be substantially bolstered.

-The protections currently offered to the RTI Commission and its personnel should be extended to all officials.

Some of CLD’s recommendations have already been incorporated into the RTI Bill and CLD encourages the members of the House Committee on Public Information to consider seriously all of our recommendations.

The full analysis is available here (https://www.law-democracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Philippines.RTI-Bill.Feb26.pdf) and the Bill which we analysed is available here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Yxvtv6gUJqxVIB8GviNKGr9yx60t0_jP/edit)

02/09/2026

Toby Mendel from the Centre for Law and Democracy appeared on the Insight-Myanmar podcast to discuss Myanmar's struggle for democracy 👇

Canada’s Place in a World of Democratic Retreat

02/09/2026

The Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) has submitted a letter to the Constitutional Court of Kazakhstan in support of a case challenging the blocking, from approximately 5-10 January 2022, of access to telecommunications services, including the Internet, in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The blocking was upheld by three levels of courts in Kazakhstan before being challenged on constitutional grounds.

“CLD takes the position that no Internet shutdown can be legitimate” said Toby Mendel, Executive Director of CLD. “We hope the Constitutional Court will find the law which justifies these sorts of actions to represent an unconstitutional limitation on freedom of expression.”

At issue in the case is Article 41-1(1–2) of the Law on Communications, which allows the National Security Committee to suspend the operation of communication networks and Internet access unilaterally, without a court order, in situations which are deemed to be “urgent.” CLD takes the position that, since the regular courts in Kazakhstan held that the shutdown was properly authorised under this provision, the provision itself cannot be legitimate.

The CLD letter provides just a brief statement of the reasons for our position, given that it needed to be prepared quickly due to the short submission deadline. It sets out the main conditions for restrictions on freedom of expression and then argues that Internet shutdowns, by definition, cannot be legitimate because their overwhelming impact on the exercise of freedom of expression means that they will always be disproportionate. It also quotes some of the leading international statements in support of this position.

CLD worked with local experts to prepare the letter. We would like to draw readers attention to a local initiative against Internet shutdowns at https://shutdown.kz (in Russian).

The full submission is available here:https://www.law-democracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Kazakhstan-Claim-Letter.Feb26.pdf