CPI Sues Gov. Jenniffer González Over Missing Transparency Act Contact Lists

San Juan, Puerto Rico — One month after Puerto Rico Gov. Jenniffer González signed amendments to the Transparency Act that restrict the public’s right to access government information, the contact information for most information officers in the executive branch — and for the agency heads who must now be notified of records requests so they are not deemed “defective” — remains unknown.

For that reason, the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI) filed a special legal action on Monday in the San Juan Superior Court against the governor, Secretary of State Francisco J. Domenech and Press Secretary Marieli Padró Raldiris.

Since Dec. 17, 2025, CPI attorney Carlos F. Ramos Hernández and Transparency Program officer Gabriela A. Dávila Lozada have requested the names, email addresses and phone numbers of information officers appointed under González’s administration, as well as information about the development of the newly announced Transparency Portal and the training provided to public officials on how to use the platform.

Under amendments included in Senate Bill 63, every public records request “must be notified to the head or director of the agency or governmental entity, the president of the corresponding legislative branch or the judicial branch, with a copy to the information officer.”

The measure, authored by Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz, also adds that if a request is not “notified in compliance […] it will be considered defective and will not have the effect of tolling the deadline for disclosure of the information.”

“Here we see how all the propaganda used to pass the amendments to the Transparency Act is exposed,” said CPI Executive Director Carla Minet. “They claimed the changes would eliminate delays by agencies, yet we’re seeing that even with extra days, they still don’t respond to requests. Without the information officers’ details — who must receive the requests — and the contact information for agency heads who now have to be notified, requests can be deemed ‘defective,’ as the law now provides. In other words, the government can decide not to answer. It confirms the saying: Those who make the law make the loophole.”

Ramos Hernández said the government announced last week that it would create a Transparency Portal to centralize requests sent to the executive branch, but during the news conference, officials said people could still submit requests by email to agencies, copying agency heads and information officers. “How can anyone meet that bureaucratic and unnecessary requirement without those email addresses?” he said. “As the lawsuit states, these amendments violate the full exercise of the fundamental right of access to information protected by the Constitution of Puerto Rico.”

The lawsuit states that “the requested information is, today, mandatory so that the public, including the press, can exercise its fundamental right of access to information and attempt to comply with the bureaucratic and unnecessary requirements” imposed through amendments to Law 141.

Ramos Hernández filed the action along with attorneys from the Access to Information Project at the Inter American University School of Law — Luis José Torres Asencio, Judith W. Berkan Barnett and Steven P. Lausell Recurt — and students from the Legal Clinic.