On Thursday, the Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI, by its Spanish acronym) appeared before the federal court to file a lawsuit against the Fiscal Control Board, under the Constitution and laws of Puerto Rico recognizing the access to information as an essential human and constitutional right.

The CPI also resorted to the San Juan Court of First Instance to file another lawsuit against Fortaleza and Governor Ricardo Rosselló, also related to the requests for information that have gone unattended by the Executive.

'The Fiscal Control Board and the Government of Puerto Rico have one thing in common: the secrecy surrounding the procedures related to PROMESA, which exacerbates our lack of democracy. The Board members and the Rosselló administration are systematically and illegally denying the access to public information. It seems like they do not understand that a well informed citizenship can contribute to the decisions being made at such a sensitive time for the country. We will not resign ourselves to a lack of transparency. This is a way of limiting participation and oversight,' said CPI executive director Carla Minet.

Most of the documents requested are the same for both lawsuits. The unfulfilled requests to the Board include nine different reports that the Puerto Rican government is supposed to submit, on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis, to the Board, according to the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA).

Another request—also included in the lawsuit—that the CPI repeatedly submitted to the FCB refers to the documents, reports, letters, emails, and any other information or data exchanged between the Board, and the government and its agencies. It also includes any data exchanged between the Board or its staff and the Department of Treasury, or any official from this or any other agency, or federal government officials, regarding the status of the tasks being carried out by the Board.

'The people of Puerto Rico have the right to know the events which will affect their daily lives and the future of Puerto Rico,' the lawsuit reads.

According to the CPI, the Board has either ignored the requests made to them over the last months or provided inadequate documentation. The same has happened with the Rosselló administration, which also received a request for the audited financial statements and the individual fiscal plans for each governmental agency.

Almost a year after being appointed to the Board, its members have also refused to disclose the documents that were part of the alleged 'rigurous process' they underwent to be appointed. These documents include the ethics evaluation of their financial interests and conflicts of interest at the time of their appointment. The CPI is now demanding these documents before the court.

José Carrión III, the Board's chairman, told the press that all seven board members submitted the documents disclosing their finances and any conflicts of interest, among others, to the Department of Treasury, as part of a 'rigorous nomination process'. The Board published a few financial disclosure documents in the webpage, but these are dated February of 2017. This is why the CPI is questioning whether these were the ones submitted to the Treasury Department in 2016, whether these were all the documents, and if they were evaluated by a federal government agency, since the Board has not issued any answers on the issue.

The lawsuit also includes requests for the protocols, regulations, manuals, or memos issued by the Board to carry out their tasks, as well as the minutes taken during any meetings held by the Board in full, its commissions, or its members.

'Just like we did with García Padilla's administration, we will claim the people's right to access public information. We hope these lawsuits will be a wake-up call for them to immediately submit the documents we have requested through conventional means on repeated occasions,' Carla Minet remarked.

The CPI is represented in this lawsuit by attorneys Judith Berkan and Stephen Lausell, before the federal court, and Luis José Torres and Annette Ramírez, all of which are part of the Legal Aid Clinic at the Inter American University of Puerto Rico School of Law.