¶ … Sunshine Act

The Government in the Sunshine Act is likened to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in that the former also mandates that meetings be conducted as "open meetings" -- that is, full disclosure of the proceedings of the meetings, specifically applied to "collegial" agencies. These "collegial" agencies are identified if these agencies are composed of more than one member or person (Hall, 2006:285). And similar to the FOIA as well, there are certain exceptions to this law, which include the non-disclosure of procedural meetings that divulges personal information about an individual, unless mandated to be disclosed by an Executive order; or the disclosure of business or financial information that are considered confidential or "trade secrets" by the owner of said information (286).

The Government in the Sunshine Act primarily aims to keep the public informed about the issues dealt and activities conducted by government agencies, a step towards establishing honesty and transparency of the government to the public. It has a strong and influential impact on public administration because the law entices the public to be aware and to take action about the issues concerning their community or society, which only becomes possible if people are aware and informed of these issues and problems that their community is dealing with at the moment. It is through knowledge of and education about social issues that citizens take a more active stance towards community involvement, which oftentimes result to active legislative action on the part of the public. Thus, if an individual, as a citizen, becomes more informed, through the open meetings, about a case or issue relevant to him/her as a citizen, s/he can form his/her own opinion based on the information being disclosed to the public by the agencies. This law embodies the wisdom that 'an informed public makes for easy governance.'

Works Cited

Hall, D. (2006). Administrative Law: Bureaucracy in a Democracy. NJ: Prentice Hall.