Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism has had to go to court three times in the past five years for the DRNA to hand over public documents.
San Juan – A special petition for access to public information was filed this Wednesday in the San Juan Superior Court against the Puerto Rico Health Insurance Services Administration (ASES, in Spanish) for failing to comply with a request from the Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI, in Spanish) regarding the government’s health insurance plan. On May 24, the CPI, through journalist Jeniffer Wiscovitch Padilla, began efforts to obtain data on the providers that participate in the government’s health insurance plan named Vital and their quality reports. After multiple telephone and email communications with ASES, the legal recourse was filed given that the term provided by Act 141-2019 (Transparency and Expedited Procedure for Access to Public Information Act) has elapsed for the agency to respond or provide what was requested. In its filing, the CPI also asks the Court to order ASES to prospectively disclose this information when requested, in compliance with Article 4 of the Transparency Act. “In this case, the request made to ASES complied with the requirements established by the Transparency Act; everything requested is public information of high interest to the people of Puerto Rico and isn’t protected in any way by any privilege or confidentiality claim,” said Carla Minet, executive director of the CPI.
