The United Bermuda Party is questioning why it will take more than a year for Public Access to Information (PATI) legislation to be introduced in the House of Assembly ? and another three to five years before this legislation is passed.told the House of Assembly on Friday the Cayman Islands had an election in spring in which the Freedom of Information was the platform of the new Government and by October a bill was tabled.

"There's an example of a smaller jurisdiction, one we think of ourselves superior too, which has moved very quickly to produce a draft legislation, but that has been done in less than year. It has taken the current Government over two years to even get a discussion paper. It's a discussion paper, but it's still just a discussion paper and we're now talking about another full year before we see draft legislation and another three to five years before it's implemented," he said.

The British Virgin Islands, he said recently submitted a report on Freedom of Information legislation.

He said what the BVI did was adapt a version of the Commonwealth Secretariat Model Law and he thought that was an interesting concept because on Monday, the House will be debating today (Monday) a piece of legislation borrowed in tact from the British Government with certain amendments to it.

Dr. Gibbons said looking at other model legislation might be something the Government should consider.

"One of the concerns we all have in this day and age is keeping Government accountable and making sure that issues like corruption are kept to a minimum as well."

"It seems to me that if smaller jurisdictions can move as quickly as Cayman and BVI have, and there is model legislation out there then surely this is the kind of thing we should be looking at,. There is no point in reinvention the wheel if other people have done this before," he said.

Dr. Gibbons said the reason he raised this point was because of the question: "Was Government committed?"

"We would feel a little more comfortable on this side if it at least looked like Government was moving with some dispatch here because, as Michael Scott said, this process started in 1998, if you go from 1998 to 2001, we are looking at 13 years to get Freedom of Legislation in place and active and that's simply not good enough," he said.

Dr. Gibbons added that the Opposition was concerned that Government was playing "PATI-cake" with this and not moving at the speed that is needed.

Another important part of the discussion paper, he said, was the overall structure.

In the Public Access to Information (PATI) discussion paper, the Central Policy Unit suggested the use of an independent review mechanism for appeals ? a key component of public access to information regimes around the world.

The Government proposes that the independent position of Information Commissioner be established in Bermuda to hear external appeals.

One of the things the Government should consider, he said, was combining the office of the Ombudsman with that of the Office of the Information Commissioner.

"Predictions on the level of usage of PATI legislation, Freedom of Information have historically been inaccurate and most cases been overestimated.'' He added it would be useful to look at the structure issue.

He also queried the issue of "decision making", stated in the discussion paper as: "Within the confines of PATI legislation, a person designated as 'decision-make'" must decide whether access requests can be granted or refused. Very often the head of department is ultimately responsible for the decision-making, but due to high levels of workload this authority is delegated to a designated civil servant within a particular department who is then referred to as the 'decision-maker'."

He questioned why it was going to take Government another five years to get this done, suggesting that codes of practice or procedure could be taken from other jurisdictions.

"It's not rocket science, you designate someone in a department or ministry and they're the designated hitter. Let's get on with it," he said.