Chilean Congress’ Bicameral Commission for Transparency carries out many initiatives at the national level to promote a culture of parliamentary openness.
The senator next elaborated on encouraging progress in the region activated through multilateral spaces such as the Latin American Parliamentary Pro Transparency, Access to Information and Integrity Network, the Open Government Partnership and its Legislative Openness Working Group. He also described the mobilization inspired by the 1st Inter-American Meeting of Presidents of the Legislative Branch, which led to the creation of a forum that will continue to coordinate efforts concerning parliamentary transparency, openness, and accountability.
To conclude, Senator Larraín invited fellow legislators to incorporate an agenda for open parliament into their work plan, including lines of action falling under the following general categories: 1) parliamentary transparency, 2) parliamentarian integrity, 3) accountability, 4) pro-transparency legislative action in the national sphere and the auditing of its implementation, and 5) coordination with other public and social entities, and international presence.
He closed his keynote by emphasizing that ParlAmericas is an important forum to facilitate the exchange of successful practices for open parliaments, and to establish institutional priorities and minimum regional standards for their realization.
Note: As some of the quotations in this section summarize the conclusions of roundtable discussions, they are not attributed to individual delegates.
PARLAMERICAS’ YEAR IN HIGHLIGHTS 2014 29
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: HERNÁN LARRAÍN
Senator Hernán Larraín is a lawyer who graduated with honours from the Catholic University of Chile. He holds a Master of Law (LL.M), from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Senator Larraín joined politics in 1991 as member of Partido Democráta Independiente – UDI. Since 1994, he has been elected as senator three times. In the latter re-election he received the largest national majority support for senators. He has been nominated by his peers as "best senator" (2002, 2005, 2007), President of his party (2006-2008) and President of the Senate (2004-2005). Today he is chairman of two Senate commissions: Agriculture, and Ethics and Transparency; and is member of Constitution, Law and Justice, and of Foreign Affairs. He chairs the Latin American Parliamentary Pro Transparency, Access to Information and Integrity Network and co-anchors the working group on legislative openness of the Open Government Partnership. He is a member of the Inter-American Dialogue.