Access to ICE aggregate salary statistics by a legislatorAcceso a información estadística salarial del ICE por parte de un diputado

I.- Proven Facts. For the decision in this matter, the following facts are deemed duly demonstrated, either because they have been proven or because the respondent has omitted to refer to them as provided for in the initial order:

• a)that through official letter ML-CP-260-04 of 23 de junio de 2004, the petitioner requested from the respondent information on "... frequency distribution (distribución de frecuencias) of all ICE employees (10,299) classified by year of seniority, showing, for each frequency, the average salary amount of the group of employees contained in the corresponding frequency. (...) A frequency distribution (distribución de frecuencias) of all ICE employees (10,299) classified by salary level, in bands of one hundred thousand colones, showing, for each frequency, the average number of years of seniority. (...)" (pages 07 and 08).
• b)That the Director of the Legal Division of that respondent Institute, through official letter 00106-38697-2004 DJO-156 of 07 de julio de 2004, responded to the petitioner that the detail of the amount of salaries earned by the officials of this Institution is an aspect pertaining to the private sphere of the workers, limiting itself to providing him, via compact disc, information on the institutional payroll, which includes the worker's name, identity card number, and years of seniority, but not the information related to frequency allocation (distribution) (page 13 ff).

II.- On the merits. The Chamber addressed the issue of access to information in public offices in Voto 2120-03 of 13:30 hours on 14 de mayo de 2003, in which it stated:

“I.- ADMINISTRATIVE TRANSPARENCY AND PUBLICITY. Within the framework of the Social and Democratic Rule of Law, each and every one of the public entities and bodies that make up the respective administration must be subject to the implicit constitutional principles of transparency and publicity, which should be the rule for all administrative action or function. Collective organizations of Public Law –public entities– are called to be true glass houses, inside which all citizens (administrados) can scrutinize and supervise, in broad daylight. Public administrations must create and promote permanent and fluid channels of communication or exchange of information with the citizens and the mass media in order to encourage greater direct and active participation in public management and to implement the principles of results evaluation and accountability currently incorporated into our constitutional text (Article 11 of the Political Constitution). Under this understanding, administrative secrecy or confidentiality (reserva) is an exception justified only under qualified circumstances when it protects constitutionally relevant values and assets. Various mechanisms exist to achieve greater levels of administrative transparency in a given legal system, such as the statement of reasons for administrative acts, the forms of their communication –publication and notification–, the public information process for the drafting of regulations and regulatory plans, participation in the administrative procedure, administrative procurement procedures, etc.; however, one of the most valuable tools for achieving this objective is the right of access to administrative information.

II.- THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION. Ordinal 30 of the Political Constitution guarantees free access to "administrative departments for purposes of information on matters of public interest," a fundamental right that in doctrine has been called the right of access to administrative archives and records (archivos y registros administrativos); however, the most accurate designation is the right of access to administrative information, since access to the physical or virtual supports of public administrations is the instrument or mechanism to achieve the intended purpose, which is for citizens to become aware of the information held by them. It must be noted that the administrative information of public interest sought by a citizen is not always found in an administrative file, archive, or record. The right of access to administrative information is a control mechanism in the hands of citizens, as it allows them to exercise optimal control over legality and over opportunity, convenience, or merit, and, in general, over the efficacy and efficiency of the administrative function carried out by the various public entities. Efficient and effective public administrations are those that submit to public control and scrutiny, but there can be no citizen control without adequate information. In this way, a logical chain can be established between access to administrative information, knowledge and handling of it, effective and timely citizen control, and efficient public administrations. The right of access to administrative information has a deep foundation in a series of principles and values inherent to the Social and Democratic Rule of Law, which, at the same time, it implements. Thus, effective and direct citizen participation in the management and handling of public affairs is inconceivable if one does not have a significant body of information about administrative competencies and services. Likewise, the democratic principle is strengthened when the various social, economic, and political forces and groups participate actively and informedly in the formation and execution of the public will. Finally, the right of access to administrative information is an indispensable tool, like many others, for the full validity of the principles of administrative transparency and publicity. The content of the right of access to administrative information is truly broad and is composed of a bundle of powers held by the person exercising it, such as the following: a) access to public departments, units, offices, and buildings; b) access to archives, records, files, and physical or automated documents –databases, file systems–; c) the citizen's power to know the personal or nominative data stored that affect them in any way; d) the citizen's power to rectify or delete such data if they are erroneous, incorrect, or false; e) the right to know the content of physical or virtual documents and files; and f) the right to obtain, at their cost, certifications or copies thereof.

III.- TYPOLOGY OF THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION. A clear distinction can be made between the right of access to administrative information (a) ad extra –outside– and (b) ad intra –inside– an administrative procedure. The former is granted to any person or citizen interested in accessing specific administrative information –uti universi– and the latter, only to the interested parties in a specific and concrete administrative procedure –uti singuli–. This right is regulated in the General Law of Public Administration in its Sixth Chapter entitled "On access to the file and its parts," Third Title of the Second Book, in Articles 272 to 274. Numeral 30 of the Political Constitution evidently refers to the right of access ad extra, since it is absolutely independent of the existence of an administrative procedure. This right has not been legislatively developed in a systematic and coherent manner, which constitutes a serious and grave gap in our legal system that has persisted for more than fifty years since the constitutional text came into force. The regulation of this right has been fragmented and sectoral; thus, by way of example, the Law of the National Archives System No. 7202 of 24 de octubre de 1990 regulates it with respect to documents with scientific and cultural value from the public entities and bodies –passive subjects– that make up the National Archives System (the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive Powers and other public entities with legal personality, as well as those deposited in private and particular archives subject to the provisions of that legal body).

IV.- ACTIVE AND PASSIVE SUBJECTS OF THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION. The active subject of the right enshrined in Article 30 of the Magna Carta is every person or every citizen (administrado), which is why the constitutional framer's purpose was to reduce administrative secrecy to its minimum expression and expand administrative transparency and publicity. Independently of the foregoing, the constitutional text also provides for a privileged institutional access to administrative information, such as, for example, that enjoyed by the investigative committees of the Legislative Assembly (Article 121, paragraph 23, of the Political Constitution) for the exercise of its political control. It should be noted that privileged institutional access is regulated by the infra-constitutional legal system for other scenarios, such as the Comptroller General of the Republic (Articles 13 of Organic Law No. 7428 of 26 de agosto de 1994; 20, paragraph 2, of the Law on Illicit Enrichment of Public Servants, No. 6872 of 17 de junio de 1983 and its reforms), the Ombudsperson's Office (article 12, paragraph 2, of Law No. 7319 of 17 de noviembre de 1992 and its reforms), the commissions for Promoting Competition and the National Consumer (Article 64 of Law No. 7274 of 20 de diciembre de 1994), the tax administration (Articles 105, 106, and 107 of the Code of Tax Rules and Procedures), etc. Regarding the passive subjects of the right of access to administrative information, it must be considered that numeral 30 of the Political Constitution guarantees free access to "administrative departments," meaning that all public entities and their bodies are passive subjects, both from the Central Administration –the State or major public entity– and from the institutional or service-based Decentralized Administration –most autonomous institutions–, territorial –municipalities–, and corporate –professional associations (colegios profesionales), productive or industrial corporations such as the Liga Agroindustrial de la Caña de Azúcar, the Instituto del Café, the Junta del Tabaco, the Corporación Arrocera, the Corporaciones Ganadera and Hortícola Nacional, etc.–. The right of access must be extended passively to public enterprises that assume collective organizational forms of private law through which a public administration carries out a business, industrial, or commercial activity and intervenes in the economy and the market, such as the Refinadora Costarricense de Petróleo Sociedad Anónima (RECOPE), the Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz Sociedad Anónima (CNFL), Radiográfica de Costa Rica Sociedad Anónima (RACSA), Correos de Costa Rica Sociedad Anónima, the Empresa de Servicios Públicos de Heredia Sociedad Anónima (EPSH), etc., especially when they hold information of public interest. Finally, private persons who permanently or temporarily exercise a public power or competence by virtue of legal or contractual authorization (munera pubblica), such as concessionaires of public services or works, interested managers, notaries, public accountants, engineers, architects, surveyors, etc., may eventually become passive subjects when they manage or possess information –documents– of clear public interest.

V.- OBJECT OF THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION. The constitutional text, in its numeral 30, refers to free access to "administrative departments," given that unrestricted access to the physical facilities of administrative offices or units would be useless and insufficient to achieve the goal of having informed citizens knowledgeable about administrative management. Consequently, a teleological or axiological interpretation of the constitutional norm must lead to the conclusion that citizens or persons can access any information held by the respective public entities and bodies, regardless of its medium, be it documentary –files, records, archives, filing systems–, electronic or computerized –databases, electronic files, automated filing systems, diskettes, compact discs–, audiovisual, magnetophonic, etc.

VI.- INTRINSIC AND EXTRINSIC LIMITS OF THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION. Regarding the intrinsic limits to the essential content of the right of access to administrative information, we have the following: 1) The purpose of the right is "information on matters of public interest," so that when the administrative information sought does not concern an issue of such nature, the right is nullified (enervado) and access cannot be granted. 2) The second limit is constituted by the provisions of paragraph 2 of constitutional ordinal 30, stipulating "State secrets are excepted." The State secret as a limit to the right of access to administrative information is a matter of legal reserve (Article 19, paragraph 1, of the General Law of Public Administration); however, more than fifty years have passed since the Constitution came into force, and the legislative omission in issuing a law on state secrets and classified matters still persists. This legislative gap has obviously caused serious uncertainty and has fostered the contra legem custom of the Executive Branch to classify, by means of executive decree, in a specific and conjunctural manner, certain matters as reserved or classified because they constitute, in its understanding, a State secret. Regarding the scope, extent, and reach of the State secret, doctrine is unanimous in accepting that it comprises aspects such as national security (internal or external), national defense against aggressions that threaten the sovereignty and independence of the State, and the foreign relations agreed upon between it and the rest of the subjects of Public International Law (see Article 284 of the Penal Code, when criminalizing the offense of "revelation of secrets"). It is not idle to distinguish between secrecy for objective and material reasons (ratione materia), referring to the three aspects previously indicated (national security, national defense, and foreign relations), and secrecy imposed on public officials or servants (ratione personae), who, by reason of the exercise of their duties, become aware of a certain type of information regarding which they must maintain a duty of discretion and confidentiality (see Article 337 of the Penal Code when criminalizing and punishing the offense of "divulgation of secrets"). The State secret is regulated in the body of law in a disjointed, dispersed, and imprecise manner (e.g., General Police Law No. 7410 of 26 de mayo de 1994, when classifying as confidential and, eventually, declarable as State secret by the President of the Republic the reports and documents of the Directorate of State Security –Article 16–; the General Civil Aviation Law regarding certain agreements of the Technical Council of Civil Aviation –Article 303–, etc.). The State secret, insofar as it constitutes an exception to the constitutional principles or values of transparency and publicity of public powers and their management, must be interpreted and applied, at all times, restrictively. Regarding the extrinsic limitations or limits of the right of access to administrative information, we have the following: 1) Article 28 of the Political Constitution establishes morality and public order as extrinsic limits to any right. 2) Article 24 of the Political Constitution guarantees all persons a sphere of privacy (intimidad) intangible to the rest of the subjects of law, such that those intimate, sensitive, or nominative data that a public entity or body has collected, processed, and stored, by being contained in its physical or automated archives, records, and files, cannot be accessed by any person because that would entail an unconstitutional external intrusion or interference. Obviously, the foregoing is more applicable when the citizen themselves has placed confidential information in the knowledge of a public administration, as it was required, for the purpose of obtaining a specific result or benefit. In reality, this limitation is intimately linked to the first intrinsic limit indicated, since it is very probable that in such a scenario the information sought does not relate to matters of public but private interest. Intimately linked to this limitation are banking secrecy, understood as the duty imposed on any financial intermediary entity not to reveal the information and data it holds on its clients from any banking operation or banking contract entered into with them, especially regarding current accounts, given that numeral 615 of the Commercial Code expressly enshrines it for that hypothesis, and industrial, commercial, or economic secrecy of companies regarding certain ideas, industrial products or procedures, and their financial, credit, and tax statements. There will be situations in which the information of a private individual held by a public entity or body may have, especially when combined with that of other individuals, a clear public dimension and vocation, circumstances that must be progressively and casuistically identified by this Constitutional Tribunal. 3) The investigation of crimes, when dealing with criminal investigations conducted by administrative or judicial police bodies, for the purpose of guaranteeing the accuracy and success of the investigation and, above all, to respect the presumption of innocence, the honor, and the privacy of the persons involved.” III.- In the present matter, it is fully proven that Nombre01, Deputy of the Legislative Assembly, requested from the respondent, through official letter ML-CP-260-04 of 23 de junio de 2004, information on "... frequency distribution (distribución de frecuencias) of all ICE employees (10,299) classified by year of seniority, showing, for each frequency, the average salary amount of the group of employees contained in the corresponding frequency. (...) A frequency distribution (distribución de frecuencias) of all ICE employees (10,299) classified by salary level, in bands of one hundred thousand colones, showing, for each frequency, the average number of years of seniority. (...)” (visible on page 07, 08). As has been proven in the proceedings, the respondents denied him access to the requested information, considering it to be information enjoying special constitutional protection in terms of its privacy, and communicated to the petitioner that they were making available only a compact disc containing information on the institutional payroll, which includes the worker's name, identity card number, and years of seniority, but not the information related to the frequency allocation by salary groups.

IV.- Despite the arguments put forward by the respondents, this Tribunal considers that the statistical information requested in due time by the petitioner, insofar as it is related to services available to those officials that are covered totally or partially with public resources, must be provided to him. In contrast, the respondent institution will be able to deny that information about its officials that involves the client-public enterprise relationship, and whose cost is met directly with the private funds (peculio) of the service user. Given that the petitioner requires the information to determine the costs with which the Instituto Nacional de Electricidad –a public enterprise– operates, and on the occasion of the processing of legislative bills that involve it, for the Chamber, the way in which frequencies are assigned to the institution's officials whose cost is covered with public resources is of public interest, and with respect to them, the respondent may not deny access to the information requested by any citizen, especially the petitioner, in his capacity as Deputy of the Legislative Assembly.

V.- By virtue of the foregoing, it is necessary to grant the amparo petition (recurso de amparo) filed and to order the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, in the person of the Head of Technology and Information, to immediately provide the petitioner, at his cost, with the information he requested through official letter ML-CP-260-04 of 23 de junio de 2004, which has a direct impact on institutional finances, insofar as its cost is covered with public resources. The respondent entity is ordered to pay the costs, damages, and losses caused.

...” (folios 07 and 08).

• b)That the Director of the Legal Division of that respondent Institute, through official communication 00106-38697-2004 DJO-156 of July 7, 2004, responded to the petitioner that the detail of the salary amounts earned by the officials of this Institution is an aspect belonging to the private sphere of the workers, limiting itself to providing him, via compact disc, information on the institutional payroll, which includes the worker's name, identity card number, and years of seniority, but not that information related to the assignment of frequencies (folio 13 ss).

II.- On the merits. The Chamber addressed the issue of access to information in public offices in Voto 2120-03 of 13:30 hours on May 14, 2003, in which it stated:

“I.- ADMINISTRATIVE TRANSPARENCY AND PUBLICITY. Within the framework of the Social and Democratic Rule of Law, each and every one of the public entities and bodies that make up the respective administration must be subject to the implicit constitutional principles of transparency and publicity, which must be the rule for all administrative action or function. Collective organizations of Public Law –public entities– are called to be true glass houses whose interior can be scrutinized and overseen, in broad daylight, by all administered persons. Public administrations must create and foster permanent and fluid channels of communication or information exchange with the administered and the mass media in order to encourage greater direct and active participation in public management and to implement the principles of results evaluation and accountability currently incorporated into our constitutional text (Article 11 of the Political Constitution). Under this understanding, administrative secrecy or confidentiality is an exception that is justified only under qualified circumstances when constitutionally relevant values and assets are protected through it. Various mechanisms exist to achieve higher levels of administrative transparency in a given legal system, such as the statement of reasons for administrative acts, the forms of their communication –publication and notification–, the public information procedure for the drafting of regulations and regulatory plans, participation in the administrative procedure, administrative contracting procedures, etc.; however, one of the most valuable tools for achieving this objective is the right of access to administrative information.

II.- THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION. Article 30 of the Political Constitution guarantees free access to ‘administrative departments for purposes of information on matters of public interest,’ a fundamental right that in doctrine has been called the right of access to administrative archives and records; however, the most accurate designation is the right of access to administrative information, since access to the physical or virtual media of public administrations is the instrument or mechanism to achieve the intended purpose, which is for the administered to gain knowledge of the information held by them. It is necessary to indicate that the administrative information of public interest sought by an administered person is not always found in an administrative file, archive, or record. The right of access to administrative information is a control mechanism in the hands of the administered, since it allows them to exercise optimal control over the legality and the opportunity, convenience, or merit, and, in general, over the effectiveness and efficiency of the administrative function carried out by the various public entities. Efficient and effective public administrations are those that submit to public control and scrutiny, but citizen control cannot exist without adequate information. In this way, a logical chain can be established between access to administrative information, knowledge and management of it, effective or timely citizen control, and efficient public administrations. The right of access to administrative information has deep roots in a series of principles and values inherent to the Social and Democratic Rule of Law, which, at the same time, it actualizes. Thus, effective and direct citizen participation in the management and handling of public affairs is inconceivable without a significant body of information about administrative competencies and services; likewise, the democratic principle is strengthened when the various social, economic, and political forces and groups participate actively and informatively in the formation and execution of the public will. Finally, the right of access to administrative information is an indispensable tool, like many others, for the full validity of the principles of administrative transparency and publicity. The content of the right of access to administrative information is truly broad and comprises a bundle of powers vested in the person exercising it, such as the following: a) access to public departments, units, offices, and buildings; b) access to archives, records, files, and physical or automated documents –databases, files–; c) the power of the administered to know the personal or nominative data stored that affect them in any way; d) the power of the administered to rectify or delete such data if they are erroneous, incorrect, or false; e) the right to know the content of physical or virtual documents and files; and f) the right to obtain, at their own cost, certifications or copies thereof.

III.- TYPOLOGY OF THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION. A clear distinction can be made between the right of access to administrative information (a) ad extra –outside– and (b) ad intra –within– an administrative procedure. The former is granted to any person or administered interested in accessing specific administrative information –uti universi– and the latter, only to the interested parties in a specific and particular administrative procedure –uti singuli–. This right is regulated in the General Law of Public Administration in its Sixth Chapter entitled ‘On access to the file and its parts,’ Third Title of the Second Book, in articles 272 to 274. Article 30 of the Political Constitution evidently refers to the right of access ad extra, since it is absolutely independent of the existence of an administrative procedure. This right has not been developed legislatively in a systematic and coherent manner, which constitutes a serious and significant gap in our legal system that has persisted for more than fifty years since the constitutional text came into force. The regulation of this right has been fragmented and sectoral; thus, by way of example, the National Archives System Law No. 7202 of October 24, 1990, regulates it with respect to documents of scientific and cultural value from the public entities and bodies –passive subjects– that make up the National Archives System (the Legislative, Judicial, Executive Branches, and other public entities with legal personality, as well as those deposited in private and individual archives subject to the provisions of that legal body).

IV.- ACTIVE AND PASSIVE SUBJECTS OF THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION. The active subject of the right enshrined in Article 30 of the Magna Carta is any person or any administered, so the constituent's purpose was to reduce administrative secrecy to its minimum expression and expand administrative transparency and publicity. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the constitutional text also provides for privileged institutional access to administrative information, such as that enjoyed by the investigative committees of the Legislative Assembly (Article 121, subsection 23, of the Political Constitution) for the exercise of their political control. It should be noted that privileged institutional access is regulated by infra-constitutional law for other scenarios, such as the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (articles 13 of the Organic Law No. 7428 of August 26, 1994; 20, paragraph 2, of the Law on Illicit Enrichment of Public Servants, No. 6872 of June 17, 1983, and its amendments), the Office of the Ombudsman (Article 12, paragraph 2, of Law No. 7319 of November 17, 1992, and its amendments), the Commissions for the Promotion of Competition and the National Consumer Commission (Article 64 of Law No. 7274 of December 20, 1994), the tax administration (articles 105, 106, and 107 of the Code of Tax Rules and Procedures), etc. Regarding the passive subjects of the right of access to administrative information, it must be considered that Article 30 of the Political Constitution guarantees free access to ‘administrative departments,’ meaning that the passive subjects are all public entities and their bodies, both from the Central Administration –State or major public entity– and from institutional or by-service Decentralized Administration –the majority of autonomous institutions–, territorial –municipalities–, and corporate –professional associations, productive or industrial corporations such as the Liga Agroindustrial de la Caña de Azúcar, the Instituto del Café, the Junta del Tabaco, the Corporación Arrocera, the Corporaciones Ganadera and Hortícola Nacional, etc.–. The right of access must be extended, passively, to public companies that assume forms of collective organization under private law through which some public administration exercises a business, industrial, or commercial activity and intervenes in the economy and the market, such as Refinadora Costarricense de Petróleo Sociedad Anónima (RECOPE), Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz Sociedad Anónima (CNFL), Radiográfica de Costa Rica Sociedad Anónima (RACSA), Correos de Costa Rica Sociedad Anónima, Empresa de Servicios Públicos de Heredia Sociedad Anónima (EPSH), etc., especially when they possess information of public interest. Lastly, private persons who permanently or temporarily exercise a public power or competence by virtue of legal or contractual authorization (munera pubblica), such as concessionaires of public services or works, interested managers, notaries, public accountants, engineers, architects, surveyors, etc., can eventually become passive subjects when they handle or possess information –documents– of clear public interest.

V.- OBJECT OF THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION. The constitutional text in its Article 30 refers to free access to ‘administrative departments,’ given that unrestricted access to the physical facilities of administrative units or offices would be useless and insufficient to achieve the purpose of having administered persons informed and knowledgeable about administrative management. Consequently, a teleological or axiological hermeneutic of the constitutional norm must lead to the conclusion that administered persons or individuals may access any information held by the respective public entities and bodies, regardless of its medium, whether documentary –files, records, archives, card files–, electronic or computer-based –databases, electronic files, automated files, diskettes, compact discs–, audiovisual, magnetic tape-based, etc.

VI.- INTRINSIC AND EXTRINSIC LIMITS OF THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION. Regarding the intrinsic limits to the essential content of the right of access to administrative information, we have the following: 1) The purpose of the right is ‘information on matters of public interest,’ so that when the administrative information sought does not concern a matter of such nature, the right is vitiated and cannot be accessed. 2) The second limit is constituted by that established in paragraph 2 of constitutional Article 30, stipulating ‘State secrets are safeguarded.’ State secrecy as a limit to the right of access to administrative information is a reservation of law (article 19, paragraph 1, of the General Law of Public Administration); however, more than fifty years have passed since the Constitution came into force, and the legislative omission in enacting a law on state secrets and classified matters still persists. This legislative gap has obviously caused serious uncertainty and has fostered the custom contra legem of the Executive Branch to classify, by means of executive decree, in a timely and conjunctural manner, some matters as confidential or classified because they constitute, in its understanding, a state secret. Regarding the scope, extent, and reach of state secrecy, doctrine is unanimous in accepting that it comprises aspects such as national security (internal or external), national defense against aggressions that threaten the sovereignty and independence of the State, and foreign relations agreed upon between it and the rest of the subjects of Public International Law (see Article 284 of the Penal Code, when typifying the crime of ‘disclosure of secrets’). It is not idle to distinguish between secrecy for objective and material reasons (ratione materia), referring to the three aforementioned aspects (national security, national defense, and foreign relations), and the secrecy imposed on public officials or servants (ratione personae) who, by reason of exercising their functions, become aware of a certain type of information, regarding which they must observe a duty of secrecy and confidentiality (see Article 337 of the Penal Code when typifying and punishing the crime of ‘divulgence of secrets’). State secrecy is regulated in the block of legality in a disjointed, dispersed, and imprecise manner (e.g., General Police Law No. 7410 of May 26, 1994, when classifying as confidential and, potentially, declarable as state secrets by the President of the Republic the reports and documents of the State Security Directorate –Article 16–; the General Civil Aviation Law regarding some agreements of the Technical Council of Civil Aviation –Article 303–, etc.). State secrecy, as it constitutes an exception to the constitutional principles or values of transparency and publicity of public powers and their management, must be interpreted and applied, at all times, restrictively. Concerning the extrinsic limitations or limits of the right of access to administrative information, we have the following: 1) Article 28 of the Political Constitution establishes morality and public order as extrinsic limits of any right. 2) Article 24 of the Political Constitution guarantees all persons a sphere of intangible privacy from other subjects of law, such that those intimate, sensitive, or nominative data that a public entity or body has collected, processed, and stored, by being contained in its physical or automated archives, records, and files, cannot be accessed by any person because this would entail an unconstitutional intrusion or external interference. Obviously, the foregoing is more applicable when the administered person themselves has disclosed confidential information to a public administration, as required, for the purpose of obtaining a specific result or benefit. In reality, this limitation is closely linked to the first intrinsic limit indicated, since, very probably, in such a case, the intended information does not concern matters of public interest but rather private ones. Closely linked to this limitation are bank secrecy, understood as the duty imposed on any financial intermediation entity not to reveal the information and data it holds on its clients from any banking operation or banking contract entered into with them, especially regarding current accounts, since Article 615 of the Commercial Code expressly enshrines it for that scenario, and the industrial, commercial, or economic secrecy of companies regarding certain ideas, products, or industrial procedures and their financial, credit, and tax statements. There will be situations in which the information of an individual held by a public entity or body may have, especially when linked with that of other individuals, a clear public dimension and vocation, circumstances that must be progressively and casuistically identified by this Constitutional Court. 3) The investigation of crimes, when dealing with criminal investigations carried out by administrative or judicial police bodies, for the purpose of guaranteeing the accuracy and success of the investigation and, above all, to respect the presumption of innocence, the honor, and the privacy of the persons involved.” III.- In the present matter, it is fully accredited that Nombre01, Deputy of the Legislative Assembly, requested from the respondent, through official communication ML-CP-260-04 of June 23, 2004, information on "... frequency distribution of all ICE employees (10,299) classified by year of seniority, showing, for each frequency, the average salary amount of the group of employees contained in the corresponding frequency. (...) A frequency distribution of all ICE employees (10,299) classified by salary level, every one hundred thousand colones, showing, for each frequency, the average number of years of seniority. (...)” (visible at folio 07, 08). As has been accredited in the process, the respondents denied access to the requested information, considering it to be information that enjoys special constitutional protection in terms of its privacy, and communicated to the petitioner that they were only making available to him a compact disc containing information on the institutional payroll, which includes the worker's name, identity card number, and years of seniority, but not that information related to the assignment of frequencies by salary groups.

IV.- Despite the arguments held by the respondents, this Court considers that the statistical information requested, in due course by the petitioner, insofar as it is related to services available to those officials that are wholly or partially covered with public resources, must be provided to him. In contrast, the respondent institution may deny that information about its officials that involves the client-public company relationship, and whose cost is directly satisfied with the private funds of the service user.

Given that the appellant requires the information to determine the costs with which the Instituto Nacional de Electricidad –a public company– operates and on the occasion of the processing of bills that involve it, for the Chamber, the way in which frequencies are assigned to the institution's officials **whose cost is covered with public funds** is of public interest, and with respect to them, the respondent may not deny access to the information requested by any citizen, especially the appellant, in his capacity as Deputy of the Legislative Assembly.

**V.-** Pursuant to the foregoing, it is appropriate to grant the amparo (recurso de amparo) petition filed and to order the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, through the Head of Technology and Information, to immediately provide the appellant, at his cost, **the information he requested through official communication ML-CP-260-04 of June 23, 2004, that has a direct impact on institutional finances,** insofar as its cost is defrayed with public resources. The respondent entity is ordered to pay the costs, damages, and losses caused.

The content of the right of access to administrative information is truly broad and comprises a bundle of powers vested in the person exercising it, such as the following: a) access to public departments, units, offices, and buildings; b) access to archives, records, case files (expedientes), and physical or automated documents—databases, files—; c) the administered person’s power to know the personal or nominative data stored that affect them in any way; d) the administered person’s power to rectify or delete such data if they are erroneous, incorrect, or false; e) the right to know the content of physical or virtual documents and case files (expedientes); and f) the right to obtain, at their own cost, certifications or copies thereof.

**III.- TYPOLOGY OF THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION.** A clear distinction can be drawn between the right of access to administrative information (a) ad extra—outside—and (b) ad intra—within—an administrative proceeding. The former is granted to any person or administered party interested in accessing specific administrative information—uti universi—and the latter, solely, to the interested parties in a specific and concrete administrative proceeding—uti singuli. This right is regulated in the General Law of Public Administration (Ley General de la Administración Pública) in its Sixth Chapter entitled “On access to the case file and its components (Del acceso al expediente y sus piezas)”, Third Title of the Second Book, in Articles 272 to 274. Article 30 of the Political Constitution (Constitución Política), evidently, refers to the right of access ad extra, since it is absolutely independent of the existence of an administrative proceeding. This right has not been developed legislatively in a systematic and coherent manner, which constitutes a serious and grave gap in our legal system that has persisted for more than fifty years since the constitutional text came into force. The regulation of this right has been fragmented and sectoral; thus, by way of example, the Law of the National Archives System (Ley del Sistema Nacional de Archivos) No. 7202 of October 24, 1990, regulates it regarding documents with scientific and cultural value of the public entities and bodies—passive subjects—that make up the National Archives System (Legislative, Judicial, Executive Powers and other public entities with legal personality, as well as those deposited in private and particular archives subject to the provisions of that legal body).

**IV.- ACTIVE AND PASSIVE SUBJECTS OF THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION.** The active subject of the right enshrined in Article 30 of the Magna Carta is any person or any administered party, so the constituent’s purpose was to reduce administrative secrecy to its minimum expression and expand administrative transparency and publicity. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the constitutional text also provides for privileged institutional access to administrative information, such as, for example, that enjoyed by the investigative committees of the Legislative Assembly (Article 121, subsection 23, of the Political Constitution) for the exercise of their political control. It should be noted that privileged institutional access is regulated by the infra-constitutional legal system for other cases, such as the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Contraloría General de la República) (Articles 13 of the Organic Law (Ley Orgánica) No. 7428 of August 26, 1994; 20, paragraph 2, of the Law on Illicit Enrichment of Public Servants (Ley sobre el Enriquecimiento Ilícito de los Servidores Públicos), No. 6872 of June 17, 1983, and its amendments), the Office of the Ombudsman (Defensoría de los Habitantes) (Article 12, paragraph 2, of Law No. 7319 of November 17, 1992, and its amendments), the commissions for Promoting Competition and the National Consumer Commission (Article 64 of Law No. 7274 of December 20, 1994), the tax administration (Articles 105, 106, and 107 of the Code of Tax Rules and Procedures (Código de Normas y Procedimientos Tributarios)), etc. Concerning the passive subjects of the right of access to administrative information, it must be taken into consideration that Article 30 of the Political Constitution guarantees free access to “administrative departments,” meaning that passive subjects are all public entities and their bodies, both from the Central Administration—the State or major public entity—and from the institutional or service-based Decentralized Administration—the majority of autonomous institutions—, territorial—municipalities—, and corporate—professional associations (colegios profesionales), productive or industrial corporations such as the Sugar Cane Agroindustrial League (Liga Agroindustrial de la Caña de Azúcar), the Coffee Institute (Instituto del Café), the Tobacco Board (Junta del Tabaco), the Rice Corporation (Corporación Arrocera), the National Livestock and Horticultural Corporations (Corporaciones Ganadera y Hortícola Nacional), etc.—. The right of access must be extended, passively, to public enterprises that assume collective organizational forms under private law through which some public administration carries out business, industrial, or commercial activity and intervenes in the economy and the market, such as the Costa Rican Petroleum Refinery, Public Limited Company (Refinadora Costarricense de Petróleo Sociedad Anónima, RECOPE), the National Power and Light Company, Public Limited Company (Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz Sociedad Anónima, CNFL), Radiográfica Costarricense, Public Limited Company (Radiográfica de Costa Rica Sociedad Anónima, RACSA), Correos de Costa Rica, Public Limited Company (Correos de Costa Rica Sociedad Anónima), the Heredia Public Services Company, Public Limited Company (Empresa de Servicios Públicos de Heredia Sociedad Anónima, EPSH), etc., especially when they possess information of public interest. Finally, private individuals who permanently or temporarily exercise a public power or competence by virtue of legal or contractual authorization (munera pubblica), such as concessionaires of public services or works, interested managers (gestores interesados), notaries, public accountants, engineers, architects, surveyors (topógrafos), etc., may eventually become passive subjects when they handle or possess information—documents—of clear public interest.

**V.- OBJECT OF THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION.** The constitutional text in Article 30 refers to free access to “administrative departments,” given that unrestricted access to the physical installations of administrative units or offices would be useless and insufficient to achieve the goal of keeping administered parties informed and knowledgeable about administrative management. Consequently, a purposive or axiological interpretation of the constitutional rule must lead to the conclusion that administered parties or persons may access any information held by the respective public entities and bodies, regardless of its medium, whether documentary—case files (expedientes), records (registros), archives (archivos), files (ficheros)—, electronic or computerized—databases, electronic case files (expedientes electrónicos), automated files, floppy disks, compact discs—, audiovisual, tape-recorded, etc.

**VI.- INTRINSIC AND EXTRINSIC LIMITS OF THE RIGHT OF ACCESS TO ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION.** Regarding the intrinsic limits to the essential content of the right of access to administrative information, we have the following: 1) The purpose of the right is “information on matters of public interest,” so when the administrative information sought does not relate to an issue of such a nature, the right is vitiated and access is unavailable. 2) The second limit is constituted by what is established in paragraph 2 of Article 30 of the Constitution, stipulating “State secrets are safeguarded (Quedan a salvo los secretos de Estado).” State secrecy as a limit to the right of access to administrative information is a matter reserved to law (Article 19, paragraph 1, of the General Law of Public Administration), however, more than fifty years have passed since the Constitution came into force, and the legislative omission in issuing a law on state secrets and classified matters still persists. This legislative gap has, obviously, caused grave uncertainty and fostered the contra legem practice of the Executive Branch of classifying, by executive decree (decreto ejecutivo), on a specific and circumstantial basis, certain matters as reserved or classified because they constitute, in its view, a State secret. Regarding the scope, extent, and reach of state secrecy, the doctrine is unanimous in accepting that it encompasses aspects such as national security (internal or external), national defense against aggressions that threaten the sovereignty and independence of the State, and foreign relations concluded between the State and the rest of the subjects of Public International Law (see Article 284 of the Penal Code (Código Penal), which typifies the crime of “disclosure of secrets”). It is not idle to distinguish between secrecy for objective and material reasons (ratione materia), referring to the three aspects previously indicated (national security, defense, and foreign relations), and secrecy imposed on public officials or servants (ratione personae) who, by reason of the exercise of their duties, become aware of a certain type of information regarding which they must observe a duty of discretion and confidentiality (see Article 337 of the Penal Code, which typifies and punishes the crime of “divulging secrets”). State secrecy is regulated in the legal framework in a disjointed, scattered, and imprecise manner (e.g., the General Police Law (Ley General de Policía) No. 7410 of May 26, 1994, qualifying the reports and documents of the State Security Directorate (Dirección de Seguridad del Estado) as confidential and, eventually, declarable a State secret by the President of the Republic – Article 16 -; the General Civil Aviation Law (Ley General de Aviación Civil) regarding certain agreements of the Civil Aviation Technical Council (Consejo Técnico de Aviación Civil) – Article 303 -, etc.). State secrecy, insofar as it constitutes an exception to the constitutional principles or values of transparency and publicity of public powers and their management, must be interpreted and applied restrictively at all times. Concerning the extrinsic limitations or limits of the right of access to administrative information, we have the following: 1) Article 28 of the Political Constitution establishes morality and public order as extrinsic limits to any right. 2) Article 24 of the Political Constitution guarantees all persons a sphere of intangible privacy from other legal subjects, such that those intimate, sensitive, or nominative data that a public entity or body has collected, processed, and stored, appearing in its physical or automated archives (archivos), records (registros), and case files (expedientes), cannot be accessed by any person, as this would entail an unconstitutional external intrusion or interference. Obviously, this applies to a greater extent when the administered party himself has brought confidential information to the attention of a public administration, as required, for the purpose of obtaining a specific result or benefit. In reality, this limitation is closely linked to the first intrinsic limit mentioned, since, very probably, in such a case, the information sought does not pertain to matters of public but rather private interest. Closely linked to this limitation are bank secrecy, understood as the duty imposed on any financial intermediary entity not to reveal the information and data it possesses about its clients due to any banking operation or contract entered into with them, especially in the case of checking accounts, since Article 615 of the Commercial Code (Código de Comercio) expressly enshrines it for that case, and the industrial, commercial, or economic secrecy of companies regarding certain ideas, products, or industrial procedures, and their financial, credit, and tax statements. There will be situations in which the information of an individual held by a public entity or body may have, especially when combined with that of other individuals, a clear public dimension and vocation, circumstances that must be progressively and on a case-by-case basis identified by this Constitutional Chamber (Tribunal Constitucional). 3) The investigation of crimes, when it involves criminal investigations carried out by administrative or judicial police forces, for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy and success of the investigation and, above all, to respect the presumption of innocence, the honor, and the privacy of the persons involved.

**III.-** In the present matter, it is fully established that Nombre01, Deputy of the Legislative Assembly, requested from the respondent, by official letter ML-CP-260-04 of June 23, 2004, information on *"... distribution of frequencies of all ICE employees (10,299) classified by year of seniority, showing, for each frequency, the average salary amount of the group of employees contained in the corresponding frequency. (...) A distribution of frequencies of all ICE employees (10,299) classified by salary level, every one hundred thousand colones, showing, for each frequency, the average number of years of seniority. (...)”* (viewable at folio 07, 08). As has been established in the proceeding, the respondents denied him access to the requested information, considering that it is information that enjoys special constitutional protection, in terms of its privacy, and informed the petitioner that they were only making available to him a compact disc containing information on the institutional payroll, which includes the employee's name, identification number, and years of seniority, but not that information related to the allocation of frequencies by salary groups.

**IV.-** Despite the arguments put forward by the respondents, this Tribunal considers that the *statistical* information requested, at the time, by the petitioner, insofar as it relates to services available to those officials whose cost is covered totally or partially with public resources, must be provided to him. In contrast, the respondent institution may deny that information about its officials that involves the client-public enterprise relationship and whose cost is satisfied directly with the private funds of the service user. Given that the petitioner requires the information to determine the costs with which the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (Instituto Nacional de Electricidad) —a public enterprise— operates, and on the occasion of the processing of bills that involve it, for this Chamber, the manner in which frequencies are allocated to the institution's officials **whose cost is covered with public resources** is a matter of public interest, and with respect to these, the respondent may not deny access to the information requested by any citizen, especially the petitioner, in his capacity as Deputy of the Legislative Assembly.

**V.-** By virtue of the foregoing, it is proper to declare the amparo appeal (recurso de amparo) filed to be with merit and to order the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity, in the person of the Chief of Technology and Information, to immediately provide the petitioner, at his cost, **the information he requested by official letter ML-CP-260-04 of June 23, 2004, that has a direct impact on institutional finances,** insofar as its cost is borne with public resources. The respondent entity is ordered to pay the costs, damages, and losses caused.

I.- Hechos probados. De importancia para la decisión de este asunto, se estiman como debidamente demostrados los siguientes hechos, sea porque así han sido acreditados o bien porque el recurrido haya omitido referirse a ellos según lo prevenido en el auto inicial:

• a)a) que mediante oficio ML-CP-260-04 del 23 de junio de 2004 el amparado solicitó al recurrido información sobre "... distribución de frecuencias de todos los empleados del ICE (10.299) clasificados por año de antigüedad, mostrando, para cada frecuencia, el monto salarial promedio del grupo de empleados contenido en la correspondiente frecuencia. (...) Una distribución de frecuencias de todos los empleados del ICE (10.299) clasificados por nivel salarial, cada cien mil colones, mostrando, para cada frecuencia, el numero de años promedio de antigüedad. (...)” (folios 07 y 08).
• b)b) Que la Directora de la División Jurídica de ese Instituto accionado, mediante oficio 00106-38697-2004 DJO-156 del 07 de julio de 2004, le respondió al amparado que el detalle del monto de los salarios que devengan los funcionarios de esta Institución, es un aspecto propio de la esfera privada de los trabajadores, limitándose a suministrarle mediante disco compacto con información sobre la planilla institucional, en la cual se contempla el nombre del trabajador, la cédula de identidad y los años de antigüedad, no así aquella información relacionada con la asignación de frecuencias (folio 13 ss).

II.- Sobre el fondo. La Sala se ocupó del tema del acceso a la información en las oficinas públicas en el Voto 2120-03 de las 13:30 hors del 14 de mayo de 2003 en que expresó:

“I.- TRANSPARENCIA Y PUBLICIDAD ADMINISTRATIVAS. En el marco del Estado Social y Democrático de Derecho, todos y cada uno de los entes y órganos públicos que conforman la administración respectiva, deben estar sujetos a los principios constitucionales implícitos de la transparencia y la publicidad que deben ser la regla de toda la actuación o función administrativa. Las organizaciones colectivas del Derecho Público –entes públicos- están llamadas a ser verdaderas casas de cristal en cuyo interior puedan escrutar y fiscalizar, a plena luz del día, todos los administrados. Las administraciones públicas deben crear y propiciar canales permanentes y fluidos de comunicación o de intercambio de información con los administrados y los medios de comunicación colectiva en aras de incentivar una mayor participación directa y activa en la gestión pública y de actuar los principios de evaluación de resultados y rendición de cuentas actualmente incorporados a nuestro texto constitucional (artículo 11 de la Constitución Política). Bajo esta inteligencia, el secreto o la reserva administrativa son una excepción que se justifica, únicamente, bajo circunstancias calificadas cuando por su medio se tutelan valores y bienes constitucionalmente relevantes. Existen diversos mecanismos para alcanzar mayores niveles de transparencia administrativa en un ordenamiento jurídico determinado, tales como la motivación de los actos administrativos, las formas de su comunicación –publicación y notificación-, el trámite de información pública para la elaboración de los reglamentos y los planes reguladores, la participación en el procedimiento administrativo, los procedimientos de contratación administrativa, etc., sin embargo, una de las herramientas más preciosas para el logro de ese objetivo lo constituye el derecho de acceso a la información administrativa.

II.- EL DERECHO DE ACCESO A LA INFORMACIÓN ADMINISTRATIVA. El ordinal 30 de la Constitución Política garantiza el libre acceso a los “departamentos administrativos con propósitos de información sobre asuntos de interés público”, derecho fundamental que en la doctrina se ha denominado derecho de acceso a los archivos y registros administrativos, sin embargo, la denominación más acertada es la de derecho de acceso a la información administrativa, puesto que, el acceso a los soportes materiales o virtuales de las administraciones públicas es el instrumento o mecanismo para alcanzar el fin propuesto que consiste en que los administrados se impongan de la información que detentan aquéllas. Es menester indicar que no siempre la información administrativa de interés público que busca un administrado se encuentra en un expediente, archivo o registro administrativo. El derecho de acceso a la información administrativa es un mecanismo de control en manos de los administrados, puesto que, le permite a éstos, ejercer un control óptimo de la legalidad y de la oportunidad, conveniencia o mérito y, en general, de la eficacia y eficiencia de la función administrativa desplegada por los diversos entes públicos. Las administraciones públicas eficientes y eficaces son aquellas que se someten al control y escrutinio público, pero no puede existir un control ciudadano sin una adecuada información. De este modo, se puede establecer un encadenamiento lógico entre acceso a la información administrativa, conocimiento y manejo de ésta, control ciudadano efectivo u oportuno y administraciones públicas eficientes. El derecho de acceso a la información administrativa tiene un profundo asidero en una serie de principios y valores inherentes al Estado Social y Democrático de Derecho, los cuales, al propio tiempo, actúa. Así, la participación ciudadana efectiva y directa en la gestión y manejo de los asuntos públicos resulta inconcebible si no se cuenta con un bagaje importante de información acerca de las competencias y servicios administrativos, de la misma forma, el principio democrático se ve fortalecido cuando las diversas fuerzas y grupos sociales, económicos y políticos participan activa e informadamente en la formación y ejecución de la voluntad pública. Finalmente, el derecho de acceso a la información administrativa es una herramienta indispensable, como otras tantas, para la vigencia plena de los principios de transparencia y publicidad administrativas. El contenido del derecho de acceso a la información administrativa es verdaderamente amplio y se compone de un haz de facultades en cabeza de la persona que lo ejerce tales como las siguientes: a) acceso a los departamentos, dependencias, oficinas y edificios públicos; b) acceso a los archivos, registros, expedientes y documentos físicos o automatizados –bases de datos ficheros-; c) facultad del administrado de conocer los datos personales o nominativos almacenados que le afecten de alguna forma, d) facultad del administrado de rectificar o eliminar esos datos si son erróneos, incorrectos o falsos; e) derecho de conocer el contenido de los documentos y expedientes físicos o virtuales y f) derecho de obtener, a su costo, certificaciones o copias de los mismos.

III.- TIPOLOGIA DEL DERECHO DE ACCESO A LA INFORMACIÓN ADMINISTRATIVA. Se puede distinguir con claridad meridiana entre el derecho de acceso a la información administrativa (a) ad extra –fuera- y (b) ad intra –dentro- de un procedimiento administrativo. El primero se otorga a cualquier persona o administrado interesado en acceder una información administrativa determinada –uti universi- y el segundo, únicamente, a las partes interesadas en un procedimiento administrativo concreto y específico –uti singuli-. Este derecho se encuentra normado en la Ley General de la Administración Pública en su Capítulo Sexto intitulado “Del acceso al expediente y sus piezas”, Título Tercero del Libro Segundo en los artículos 272 a 274. El numeral 30 de la Constitución Política, evidentemente, se refiere al derecho de acceso ad extra, puesto que, es absolutamente independiente de la existencia de un procedimiento administrativo. Este derecho no ha sido desarrollado legislativamente de forma sistemática y coherente, lo cual constituye una seria y grave laguna de nuestro ordenamiento jurídico que se ha prolongado en el tiempo por más de cincuenta años desde la vigencia del texto constitucional. La regulación de este derecho ha sido fragmentada y sectorial, así, a título de ejemplo, la Ley del Sistema Nacional de Archivos No. 7202 del 24 de octubre de 1990, lo norma respecto de los documentos con valor científico y cultural de los entes y órganos públicos –sujetos pasivos- que conforman el Sistema Nacional de Archivos (Poderes Legislativo, Judicial, Ejecutivo y demás entes públicos con personalidad jurídica, así como los depositados en los archivos privados y particulares sometidos a las previsiones de ese cuerpo legal).

IV.- SUJETOS ACTIVO Y PASIVO DEL DERECHO DE ACCESO A LA INFORMACIÓN ADMINISTRATIVA. El sujeto activo del derecho consagrado en el artículo 30 de la Carta Magna lo es toda persona o todo administrado, por lo que el propósito del constituyente fue reducir a su mínima expresión el secreto administrativo y ampliar la transparencia y publicidad administrativas. Independientemente de lo anterior, el texto constitucional prevé, también, un acceso institucional privilegiado a la información administrativa como, por ejemplo, del que gozan las comisiones de investigación de la Asamblea Legislativa (artículo 121, inciso 23, de la Constitución Política) para el ejercicio de su control político. Debe advertirse que el acceso institucional privilegiado es regulado por el ordenamiento infraconstitucional para otras hipótesis tales como la Contraloría General de la República (artículos 13 de la Ley Orgánica No. 7428 del 26 de agosto de 1994; 20, párrafo 2º, de la Ley sobre el Enriquecimiento Ilícito de los Servidores Públicos, No. 6872 del 17 de junio de 1983 y sus reformas), la Defensoría de los Habitantes (artículo 12, párrafo 2º, de la Ley No. 7319 del 17 de noviembre de 1992 y sus reformas), las comisiones para Promover la Competencia y Nacional del Consumidor (artículo 64 de la Ley No. 7274 del 20 de diciembre de 1994), la administración tributaria (artículos 105, 106, y 107 del Código de Normas y Procedimientos Tributarios), etc.. En lo tocante a los sujetos pasivos del derecho de acceso a la información administrativa, debe tomarse en consideración que el numeral 30 de la Constitución Política garantiza el libre acceso a los “departamentos administrativos”, con lo que serán sujetos pasivos todos los entes públicos y sus órganos, tanto de la Administración Central –Estado o ente público mayor- como de la Administración Descentralizada institucional o por servicios –la mayoría de las instituciones autónomas-, territorial –municipalidades- y corporativa –colegios profesionales, corporaciones productivas o industriales como la Liga Agroindustrial de la Caña de Azúcar, el Instituto del Café, la Junta del Tabaco, la Corporación Arrocera, las Corporaciones Ganadera y Hortícola Nacional, etc.-. El derecho de acceso debe hacerse extensivo, pasivamente, a las empresas públicas que asuman formas de organización colectivas del derecho privado a través de las cuales alguna administración pública ejerce una actividad empresarial, industrial o comercial e interviene en la economía y el mercado, tales como la Refinadora Costarricense de Petróleo Sociedad Anónima (RECOPE), la Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz Sociedad Anónima (CNFL), Radiográfica de Costa Rica Sociedad Anónima (RACSA), Correos de Costa Rica Sociedad Anónima, la Empresa de Servicios Públicos de Heredia Sociedad Anónima (EPSH), etc., sobre todo, cuando poseen información de interés público. Por último, las personas privadas que ejercen de forma permanente o transitoria una potestad o competencia pública en virtud de habilitación legal o contractual (munera pubblica), tales como los concesionarios de servicios u obras públicas, los gestores interesados, los notarios, contadores públicos, ingenieros, arquitectos, topógrafos, etc. pueden, eventualmente, convertirse en sujetos pasivos cuando manejan o poseen información –documentos- de un claro interés público.

V.- OBJETO DEL DERECHO DE ACCESO A LA INFORMACIÓN ADMINISTRATIVA. El texto constitucional en su numeral 30 se refiere al libre acceso a los “departamentos administrativos”, siendo que el acceso irrestricto a las instalaciones físicas de las dependencias u oficinas administrativas sería inútil e insuficiente para lograr el fin de tener administrados informados y conocedores de la gestión administrativa. Consecuentemente, una hermenéutica finalista o axiológica de la norma constitucional, debe conducir a concluir que los administrados o las personas pueden acceder cualquier información en poder de los respectivos entes y órganos públicos, independientemente, de su soporte, sea documental –expedientes, registros, archivos, ficheros-, electrónico o informático –bases de datos, expedientes electrónicos, ficheros automatizados, disquetes, discos compactos-, audiovisual, magnetofónico, etc..

VI.- LÍMITES INTRÍNSECOS Y EXTRÍNSECOS DEL DERECHO DE ACCESO A LA INFORMACIÓN ADMINISTRATIVA. En lo relativo a los límites intrínsecos al contenido esencial del derecho de acceso a la información administrativa, tenemos, los siguientes: 1) El fin del derecho es la “información sobre asuntos de interés público”, de modo que cuando la información administrativa que se busca no versa sobre un extremo de tal naturaleza el derecho se ve enervado y no se puede acceder. 2) El segundo límite está constituido por lo establecido en el párrafo 2º del ordinal 30 constitucional al estipularse “Quedan a salvo los secretos de Estado”. El secreto de Estado como un límite al derecho de acceso a la información administrativa es reserva de ley (artículo 19, párrafo 1º, de la Ley General de la Administración Pública), empero, han transcurrido más de cincuenta años desde la vigencia de la Constitución y todavía persiste la omisión legislativa en el dictado de una ley de secretos de estado y materias clasificadas. Esta laguna legislativa, obviamente, ha provocado una grave incertidumbre y ha propiciado la costumbre contra legem del Poder Ejecutivo de calificar, por vía de decreto ejecutivo, de forma puntual y coyuntural, algunas materias como reservadas o clasificadas por constituir, a su entender, secreto de Estado. Tocante el ámbito, extensión y alcances del secreto de Estado, la doctrina es pacífica en aceptar que comprende aspecto tales como la seguridad nacional (interna o externa), la defensa nacional frente a las agresiones que atenten contra la soberanía e independencia del Estado y las relaciones exteriores concertadas entre éste y el resto de los sujetos del Derecho Internacional Público (vid. artículo 284 del Código Penal, al tipificar el delito de “revelación de secretos”). No resulta ocioso distinguir entre el secreto por razones objetivas y materiales (ratione materia), referido a los tres aspectos anteriormente indicados (seguridad, defensa nacionales y relaciones exteriores) y el secreto impuesto a los funcionarios o servidores públicos (ratione personae) quienes por motivo del ejercicio de sus funciones conocen cierto tipo de información, respecto de la cual deben guardar un deber de sigilo y reserva (vid. artículo 337 del Código Penal al tipificar y sancionar el delito de “divulgación de secretos). El secreto de Estado se encuentra regulado en el bloque de legalidad de forma desarticulada, dispersa e imprecisa (v. gr. Ley General de Policía No. 7410 del 26 de mayo de 1994, al calificar de confidenciales y, eventualmente, declarables secreto de Estado por el Presidente de la República los informes y documentos de la Dirección de Seguridad del Estado –artículo 16-; la Ley General de Aviación Civil respecto de algunos acuerdos del Consejo Técnico de Aviación Civil –artículo 303-, etc.). El secreto de Estado en cuanto constituye una excepción a los principios o valores constitucionales de la transparencia y la publicidad de los poderes públicos y su gestión debe ser interpretado y aplicado, en todo momento, de forma restrictiva. En lo concerniente a las limitaciones o límites extrínsecos del derecho de acceso a la información administrativa tenemos los siguientes: 1) El artículo 28 de la Constitución Política establece como límite extrínseco del cualquier derecho la moral y el orden público. 2) El artículo 24 de la Constitución Política le garantiza a todas las personas una esfera de intimidad intangible para el resto de los sujetos de derecho, de tal forma que aquellos datos íntimos, sensibles o nominativos que un ente u órgano público ha recolectado, procesado y almacenado, por constar en sus archivos, registros y expedientes físicos o automatizados, no pueden ser accedidos por ninguna persona por suponer ello una intromisión o injerencia externa e inconstitucional. Obviamente, lo anterior resulta de mayor aplicación cuando el propio administrado ha puesto en conocimiento de una administración pública información confidencial, por ser requerida, con el propósito de obtener un resultado determinado o beneficio. En realidad esta limitación está íntimamente ligada al primer límite intrínseco indicado, puesto que, muy, probablemente, en tal supuesto la información pretendida no recae sobre asuntos de interés público sino privado. Íntimamente ligados a esta limitación se encuentran el secreto bancario, entendido como el deber impuesto a toda entidad de intermediación financiera de no revelar la información y los datos que posea de sus clientes por cualquier operación bancaria o contrato bancario que haya celebrado con éstos, sobre todo, en tratándose de las cuentas corrientes, ya que, el numeral 615 del Código de Comercio lo consagra expresamente para esa hipótesis, y el secreto industrial, comercial o económico de las empresas acerca de determinadas ideas, productos o procedimientos industriales y de sus estados financieros, crediticios y tributarios. Habrá situaciones en que la información de un particular que posea un ente u órgano público puede tener, sobre todo articulada con la de otros particulares, una clara dimensión y vocación pública, circunstancias que deben ser progresiva y casuísticamente identificadas por este Tribunal Constitucional. 3) La averiguación de los delitos, cuando se trata de investigaciones criminales efectuadas por cuerpos policiales administrativos o judiciales, con el propósito de garantizar el acierto y éxito de la investigación y, ante todo, para respetar la presunción de inocencia, el honor y la intimidad de las personas involucradas” III.- En el presente asunto, se encuentra plenamente acreditado que Nombre01, Diputado de la Asamblea Legislativa, solicitó al accionado, mediante oficio ML-CP-260-04 del 23 de junio de 2004, información sobre "... distribución de frecuencias de todos los empleados del ICE (10.299) clasificados por año de antigüedad, mostrando, para cada frecuencia, el monto salarial promedio del grupo de empleados contenido en la correspondiente frecuencia. (...) Una distribución de frecuencias de todos los empleados del ICE (10.299) clasificados por nivel salarial, cada cien mil colones, mostrando, para cada frecuencia, el numero de años promedio de antigüedad. (...)” (visible a folio 07, 08). Según ha quedado acreditado en el proceso, los recurridos le denegaron el acceso a la información solicitada, por estimar que se trata de información que goza de especial protección constitucional, en términos de su privacidad, y le comunicó al amparado que únicamente ponía a su disposición un disco compacto que contiene información sobre la planilla institucional, en la cual se contempla el nombre del trabajador, la cédula de identidad y los años de antigüedad, no así aquella información relacionada con la asignación de frecuencias por grupos salariales.

IV.- Pese a los argumentos sostenidos por los accionados, este Tribunal estima que la información estadística solicitada, en su oportunidad por el recurrente, en tanto esté relacionada con servicios a disposición de esos funcionarios que sean cubiertos total o parcialmente con recursos públicos, debe serle suministrada. En contraste, podrá la institucionación accionada negar aquella información de sus funcionarios que involucre la relación cliente-empresa pública, y cuyo costo sea satisfecha directamente con el peculio del usuario del servicio. Siendo que el recurrente requiere la información para determinar los costos con los que opera el Instituto Nacional de Electricidad –empresa pública- y con ocasión de la tramitación de proyectos de ley que la involucran, para la Sala, es de interés público, la forma en que se asignan las frecuencias a los funcionarios de la institución cuyo costo sea cubierto con recursos públicos y con respecto a ellas, la accionada no podrá negar el acceso a la información solicitada por cualquier ciudadano, en especial, al que recurre, en su condición de Diputado de la Asamblea Legislativa.

V.- En mérito de lo expuesto, se impone declarar con lugar el recurso de amparo interpuesto y ordenarle al Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, en la persona del Jefe de Tecnología e Información, que le suministre, inmediatamente al recurrente, a su costo, la información que solicitó mediante oficio ML-CP-260-04 del 23 de junio de 2004 y que tenga repercusión directa sobre las finanzas institucionales, en tanto su costo sea sufragado con recursos públicos.Se condena al ente recurrido al pago de las costas, daños y perjuicios ocasionados.