Perspectivas doctrinales del derecho a la información

Abstract

The Ríght to Informatían has already passed through the first stage of its development. It needs, however, a theoretical treatment capable of explaining its foundation, structure and nature, as well as removing its present imperfections. It is necessary to rise beyond the already classical idea that Law affords Information a guaranteed boundary and the protect:on of a zone of freedom, in order to be able to consider Information from the viewpoint of being subject to Law. This state of affairs does not imply, however, that the idea of freedom has to be considered useless when establishing the right to information, but rather it becomes necessary to abandon the liberal idea of freedom of information for that of autonomy; this latter concept, apart from defining the zone of freedom in a positive manner, lays the foundation of a unified vision of freedom and responsibility. The concept of autonomy of information and the awareness that its nature is multiple and not bipolar (State-medial, implies a double role for legislation: to safeguard and defend in all cases the different spheres of autonomy; and to assure its exercise in practice, that is, to legislate for information as a right. The theoretical expression of the right to information has undergone in the course ot a relatively short time a process of successive refinement. At first mistaken for the freedom of information, it has been later perfected by passing through different stages that have progressively enriched its contento With regard to the juridical nature of the right to information, it appears quite reasonable to suppose that it is one of the rights of man, and as such subject to the processes both of fundamental law and of public and private subjetive law. As public subjective law it demands guaranteed concrete powers as an expression of the juridical application in practice of the right to information in its aspect as fundamental law. In its role as private subjective law it assumes the task of coordinating the contractual relationships that arise from the phenomenon of information, because it is obvious that fundamental rights ought to influence juridical relationships of a private nature.