Juan Pablo Guerrero is one of five commissioners of the Federal Institute for Access to Public Information (IFAI).  Commissioner Guerrero was appointed by the Mexican President for the period 2002-2009; his nomination was unanimously supported by the Senate.  Commissioner Guerrero was previously a full-time professor and researcher at Mexico’s Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE) from 1994 to 2003.  He held the position of Director of the Development Office; Program Director for the Budget Program (1998-2002); Program Director for the Budget Transparency Index in Five Latin American Countries (2001-2002); Program Director for the Agenda of Municipal Reforms (1998-2002) project;  and Director of the Public Administration Division (1997-1998), all at CIDE. He has completed his Ph. D. coursework in Political Science and Public Policy at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (IEP-Paris) and holds a Master’s Degrees in Public Policy from IEP-Paris and in Economics and International Politics from the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University. Commissioner Guerrero’s main research topics include: budget and public finance, public administration reform (transparency, accountability and civil service), and fiscal decentralization and local government finances in Mexico.

IFAI is an autonomous federal body in charge of regulating the Transparency and Right to Information Act in the Executive Branch in Mexico; when seized by a requester, IFAI acts as an administrative court with the authority for disclosure of the denied government information. IFAI is also responsible for protecting personal records, defining guidelines for the provision of government information to the public, defining the framework for classification of government information, and ultimately deciding whether information is public or classified.

Eduardo Bertoni has been the Executive Director of the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF) since June 2006.  Previously, he was the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights at the Organization of American States (2002-2005) and a former fellow of the Human Rights Institute at Columbia University School of Law.

Mr. Bertoni has also worked as a private lawyer in Argentina and has been a legal advisor for several nongovernmental organizations in his country. He has also worked as an advisor to the Department of Justice and Human Rights in Argentina. He holds a Masters in International Policy and Practice from the Elliot School of International Affairs, George Washington University and was appointed Professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure at the School of Law of Universidad de Buenos Aires, where he has taught undergraduate and graduate courses.

Mr. Bertoni has written several publications on the right to freedom of expression, judicial reforms and international criminal law and has given lectures and conferences in several countries on these issues.

Country Director, Comoros, Eritrea, Kenya, Seychelles and Somalia

Mr. Bruce, a Guyanese national, joined the World Bank in August 1988 through its Young Professionals programme. Since then, he has held regional and corporate assignments such as a country economist for India and Kenya, and an adviser in the Office of the Managing Director, Operations.

While working as Country Economist for Kenya in the late 80s and early 90s, Mr. Bruce was involved in reforms in trade, finance, agriculture and the public sector. 

His most recent prior assignment was as Senior Manager in the World Bank’s Operational Policy and Country Services Division. While in this position, Mr. Bruce served as co-chair within the global working group on aid effectiveness and donor practices set up by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. 

He also chaired the global steering group that was responsible for the ministerial forum on aid effectiveness held in Paris in March 2005, and for the resulting Paris Declaration.

Mr. Bruce became Country Director in May 2005 and is based in Nairobi. His priorities include supporting private-sector led growth, with an enhanced focus on equity and governance, and with a singular emphasis on practical development results. 

He is expanding the Bank’s dialogue and efforts on reforms through stronger partnerships with the non-executive branches of government, the private sector, vulnerable communities, professional associations, faith-based groups and foundations. 

Prior to joining the World Bank, Mr. Bruce was an economist with the Caribbean Development Bank.

Maja Daruwala is the Executive Director of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, an international NGO mandated to ensure the practical realization of human rights across the Commonwealth. She is actively engaged in numerous human rights initiatives and concentrates on issues relating to civil liberties including police reform, prison reform, right to information, discrimination, women's rights, freedom of expression, and human rights advocacy capacity building.
 
Maja’s interests lie particularly in the area of systemic reforms. She has focused her energies on issues of accountability and participation, which she believes are essential underpinnings for good governance and the realisation of human rights.
 
Maja sits on several charitable boards, including the Open Society Institute-Justice Initiative, the International Women’s Health Coalition, both based in New York, Civicus: World Alliance for Citizens Participation, based in Johannesburg, South Asians for Human Rights, based in Colombo, and the Voluntary Action Network of India, an umbrella organisation based in New Delhi aimed at protecting civil society. Maja believes the only way to be optimistic about the future is to invent it!

He is an Attorney at Law by the Escuela Libre De Derecho in Mexico, and candidate to Doctor at Law by the Complutense University of Madrid, and by the Anahuac University in Mexico, where the thesis subject to achieve the Doctoral Degree was "The access to public information and the protection of personal data."

Mr Dominguez has served as a Defense Lawer and Public Servant in several federal government organizations, highlighting his performance of duties as Consulting Director at the Federal Institute for access to the governments public information. At the present time he serves as an advisor and councellor of the Institute for Open Govenment and access to public information of the State of Mexico. He was approved by the Governor for the period 2004 - 2008 and his nomination was unanomously supported by the House of Representatives in the State of Mexico.

Mr Dominguez has written various papers for several journals, such as The Electronic Review of the Community of Madrid's agency for personal data protection, The World of Lawers magazine, and the Iuris Tantum journal among others.

Mr Dominuguez has also given lectures about public information, both at state level as well as federal level; he has participated in meetings about personal data organized by Mexico's Senate and by the House of Representatives as well as by the LV (55th) parlimentary session of the State of Mexico's Legiislature; he has aslo particpated in international forums and meetings such as the IV (4th) Latin-American Conference on personal data protection, and at the 4th International meeting of Access to Information Commissioners, held in Manchester England in may of last year.

Leo Donnelly is Deputy Ombudsman in New Zealand. He first joined the Office of the Ombudsmen in 1985 as an investigating officer in the Official Information Act section of the Office. He was appointed Assistant Ombudsman in November 1996 and Deputy Ombudsman in September 2004. In that role he assists the Ombudsmen in their statutory investigation and review functions under the Ombudsmen Act, the Official Information Act, the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and The Protected Disclosures Act. He has played a significant advisory role to the New Zealand Ombudsmen on FOI issues for over 20 years. He has written several papers and addressed seminars on issues relating to information access and privacy and the operation of New Zealand’s official information legislation.

Kevin Dunion has been the Scottish Information Commissioner since 2003. He has issued over 500 formal decisions since the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act came into effect in January 2005. He has a team of 21 staff based in St Andrews Fife to assist him in carrying out investigations and promoting the legislation. He contributes extensively to professional events and seminars in the UK and as the Scottish experience is increasingly being looked at by other regimes, he is engaged in international freedom of information development. He has acted as an advisor to the Carter Centre in its work on FoI in Jamaica and also contributed to the Scottish Executive programme of support to Malawi.

Maurice Frankel has been the Director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information since 1987.  He has been closely involved with the UK Freedom of Information Act since its inception, in seeking to persuade the government to legislate, in pressing for improvements to the bill during its Parliamentary passage and subsequently in training both public authority staff and potential users.  He is a member of the Department for Constitutional Affairs 'Information Rights User Group' and was a member of the Commonwealth Group of Experts whose Freedom of Information Principles were adopted by Commonwealth Law Ministers in 1999.

Mr Ila Geno is from Karawa village, Hood Lagoon, Rigo, in Central Province. His primary education was at the London Missionary Society School in Karawa and Hood Lagoon Primary School at Keapara.  He completed his secondary education at Sogeri Secondary School In 1967.

Mr Geno joined the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary in 1968 as a direct entry Cadet Officer upon leaving school.  This was the beginning of a long and distinguished career with the Police Force, spanning 24 years.

In 1974/75, Mr Geno matriculated and completed a Diploma in Police Science at the University of Papua New Guinea.  He held many different positions within the RPNGC, including Chief Superintendent, Director of the Criminal Investigation Division and Deputy Commissioner before being appointed Commissioner of Police In 1990.

In December 1992, he was appointed as Commissioner and Chairman of the Public Services Commission, becoming a Constitutional Office-holder for the first time.  He was to hold the position for six years.

In December 1998, the Governor General, acting on the advice of the Ombudsman Appointments Committee, appointed Mr Geno as an Ombudsman. Two years later he was appointed to the Office of Chief Ombudsman.

At present serving 37th year in the Public Service since joining the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary In February 1968.  Served a total of nearly twenty five (25) years In the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary, six years In the Public Services Commission as Chairman and Commissioner.  At present the 7th year in the Ombudsman Commission as an Ombudsman and Chief Ombudsman until 30 June 2008.

Christian Gruenberg holds a degree in law from the University of Buenos Aires; a diploma in public policies from the Universidad de Chile; and a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University. He is a Mason fellow (Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University); Ashoka Innovator for Public;  former director of Transparency International Argentina (1997-2003); he is director  of Transparency Policies at CIPPEC (Argentina).

Robert Hazell is Professor of Government and the Constitution at University College London and Director of the Constitution Unit within the School of Public Policy. He founded the Constitution Unit in 1995 as an independent think-tank specialising in constitutional reform. Before that he was Director of the Nuffield Foundation for six years, but he has spent most of his working life as a senior civil servant in the Home Office (1975-89). In 1987, Robert visited New Zealand, Australia and Canada to do a comparative analysis of their FOI laws for the UK Home Office.  He is currently leading a project to evaluate whether the UK’s Freedom of Information Act has achieved the objectives the government said lay behind its introduction.

Formerly of the Indian Administrative Service, Rajan Kashyap was involved in governance during his service over 38 years at the national and state level in India.  His experience includes policy formulation and execution.  His academic degrees are M.A. in English and M.Phil in Development Economics (University of Cambridge, U.K.).

Sir Kenneth Keith is a New Zealand judge, appointed to the International Court of Justice in 2005.  In his varied career he was a member of the Danks Committee which drafted New Zealand’s Official Information Act in 1981,  and as president of the New Zealand Law Commission drafted its review of the Act in 1997.  From 1996 to 2003, Keith was a Judge of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand, and was a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. Prior to his appointment to the International Court of Justice he was one of the inaugural appointments to the new Supreme Court of New Zealand which replaced the Privy Council.

Annette King is a front bench Labour MP holding the portfolios of Justice, Police and Transport.

Born in Murchison, she was educated at Murchison District High School and Waimea College. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Waikato University.
Following her 1981 graduation with a  Post Graduate Diploma in Dental Nursing, she worked as a Dental Nurse over 1967-81 and was a tutor at the School of Dental Nurses in Wellington over 1982-84.
Later she became the Chief Executive of the Palmerston North Enterprise Board, holding that position from 1991 until1993. She was also a former Vice President of the State Dental Nurses Institute and was a trustee of the Disabled Persons Assembly Trust from 1989 to 1991.

Ms King has been a member of the Labour Party since 1972, where she has held various offices, including serving on the Executive from 1991 to 1992.
Her career as a politician began when she was elected Labour MP for Horowhenua in 1984. Subsequently she served as the under-secretary to the ministers of Social Welfare, Tourism, Employment and Youth Affairs. Her special role was as the minister assisting the Prime Minister in liaising between Cabinet and Caucus.

Ms King lost the Horowhenua seat in 1990, but in the following 1993 election she was elected MP for Miramar. She has held the new seat of Rongotai, which includes the Chatham Islands, since 1996.

Her first Cabinet position was as the Minister of Health and then the Minister for Racing in 1999. She continued with Health and took up the new Food Safety portfolio following the 2002 election.

After the 2005 election she became Minister of State Services and Minister of Police, while maintaining the Food Safety portfolio. The following year she was also appointed Minister of Transport.

In the November, 2007, reshuffle Ms King became the Minister of Justice. She maintained her police and transport portfolios, with the state services and food safety portfolios reassigned.

She is married with an adult daughter.

Alonso Lujambio is currently Commissioner President at the Federal Institute of Access to Public Information. He was born in Mexico City in 1962; he has a master’s degree in Political Sciences from Yale University.

Before the IFAI, Alonso Lujambio was Director of the Political Sciences Department at ITAM University (Mexico City), and served as Electoral Counselor at the Federal Electoral Institute from 1996 to 2003. In 2004, he worked as a consultant for the United Nations and helped design the electoral system in Iraq for the January 2005 elections.

He has written and co-written a variety of books that include: “Federalism and Congress in Mexico’s democratization process” (1995), “Sharing power in Mexico’s transition to democracy” (2000), and “Money and Elections: The big challenge” (2002).

David McGee joined the New Zealand Office of the Clerk in 1974 and worked in several roles in the House of Representatives and with select committees.  He was admitted as a barrister and solicitor in 1977. He was appointed Clerk of the House of Representatives in 1985.  In that capacity he is the principal advisor to the Speaker and Members of Parliament on parliamentary law and practice.

He was a member of the committee which reported on New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements and devised the legislation that became law as the Constitution Act 1986.  He was also a member of the panel which arranged and oversaw the public information campaigns organised for the electoral referendums held in 1992 and 1993.  In his present capacity he determines the final form of questions to be put to voters by way of citizens initiated referenda.

He is the author of Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand, now in its third edition, the authoritative guide to parliamentary procedure in New Zealand.  He has also written extensively in the area of parliamentary and constitutional studies.

He was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 2000.  In the Queen’s Birthday Honours of 2002 he was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM).

Professor John McMillan
Professor John McMillan is the Commonwealth Ombudsman, appointed in 2003 for a five year term. The Ombudsman is an ex officio member of the Administrative Review Council, which advises the Government on administrative law reform. In 2007 he was appointed on an acting basis for six months to be the first Integrity Commissioner, to head the new Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity.

John is on leave from the Australian National University, where he was a Professor of Law, holding the Alumni Chair in Administrative Law.  He has formerly been an Associate to a High Court Justice, solicitor, public interest advocate, and legal consultant to a national law firm and to parliamentary and governmental inquiries.

John is a co-author of Control of Government Action: Text, Cases & Commentary (2005, LexisNexis). He was a founding member and later President of the Australian Institute of Administrative Law. John is a National Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia.

Marcos Mendiburu holds a Master’s degree in Public and International Affairs, with a major in Economic and Social Development from GSPIA, University of Pittsburgh. He also pursued graduate studies in International Relations in Argentina, at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), where he worked for approximately five years.

Marcos joined the World Bank in 1999, managing and supporting several initiatives on access to information, transparency, and social accountability in different regions of the world such as Central Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean and South Asia.  In implementing the above activities, he forged partnerships with international institutions, local public bodies and NGOs.

On July 1, 2006, he joined the Media, Information & Governance Program of the World Bank Institute.  Within the broader framework of promoting good governance, he has focused on promoting access to public information and strengthening the role that media plays in accountability and governance, mainly in Latin America and the Caribbean.  Prior to this position, he was a member of WBI’s Social Empowerment and Social Inclusion Program.

Andrea Neill was appointed Assistant Commissioner, Complaints Resolution and Compliance at the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada on June 18, 2007. A lawyer with over 20 years experience, she began her career in the federal Public Service in 1983, working on access to information and privacy issues in the Department of Finance. She has held progressively more senior positions with the Department of Justice, including Senior Counsel and Director of the Information Law and Privacy Section, Deputy Legal Advisor and General Counsel in the Department of National Defence, and General Counsel and Associate Head of Legal Services in  Transport Canada. Her most recent assignment was that of Chief Privacy Officer and General Counsel with the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Ms. Neill obtained a Bachelor of Arts from Bishop’s University in 1978 and a Bachelor of Laws from McGill University in 1981.

Ms Emily O'Reilly was appointed Information Commissioner with effect from 1st June 2003 by the President of Ireland Mrs Mary McAleese, on the nomination of each of the Houses of the Oireachtas (Dail and Seanad).  She was appointed as Ombudsman on the same day.

As Freedom of Information Commissioner, Ms O'Reilly will provide an independent review of decisions relating to the right of access of members of the public to records held by public bodies.  She is also a member of the Standards in Public Offices Commission.

Prior to her appointment as both Information Commissioner and Ombudsman, she was a journalist and author and had been a political correspondent for various media since 1989.  Ms O'Reilly is a native of Tullamore, County Offaly and is married with five children. She was educated at University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin. She was also the recipient of a Nieman Fellowship in Journalism at Harvard University, Cambridge, U.S.A.

Sir Geoffrey was appointed as President of the Law Commission on 1 December 2005 for a term of five years.  Sir Geoffrey has had a long career in the law, as an academic lawyer, a politician, and  a law practitioner.
 
Educated at the Victoria University of Wellington where he graduated BA in political science and LLB, he was awarded a British Commonwealth Fellowship at the University of Chicago where he graduated Doctor of Law cum laude in 1967.

As the Member of Parliament for Christchurch Central from 1979-1990, he became Deputy Leader of the Opposition and later in 1984-1989 Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Justice and Attorney-General.  He was from 1984-1987 Leader of the House of Representatives as well.  After the 1987 election, he became Minister for the Environment, a post he held until 1990.  In 1989-1990 he was Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Both before entering politics and after leaving it, he was a Professor of Law at the Victoria University of Wellington and at the University of Iowa in the United States.  In 1994 Geoffrey Palmer became a founding partner of Chen, Palmer & Partners, the Wellington based public law specialist law firm, but throughout his period of practice continued to teach at the Victoria University of Wellington and at the University of Iowa.   He left the firm to join the Law Commission.

Geoffrey Palmer has written a long list of books and scholarly articles on legal matters.  Perhaps the best known of them is: Unbridled Power: An Interpretation of New Zealand’s Constitution and Government first published in 1984, with a second edition in 1987.  Then co-authoring with his son Dr Matthew Palmer, the book was re-titled as Bridled Power: New Zealand’s Constitution on Government, published in 1997, with the fourth edition in 2004.  During his years in practice, Geoffrey Palmer appeared in the superior courts including the Privy Council in a number of important cases.

Maria Elena Pérez-Jaén Zermeño was elected as Counselor by the Legislative Assembly (local congress) for the Federal District (Mexico City) Council of Public Information on July, 2003. But the Major at that time, Mr. Lopez Obrador (2000-2006), ordered the congressmen of the Legislative Assembly the destitution of Maria Elena as Counselor in March 2006. On January 2007, she was reestablished by the Supreme Court and currently she is one of the six Commissioners at the Federal District Institute of Public Information to due her period until 2009.
 
She has a Bachelor degree on Political Science and Public Administration by the Iberoamericana University (UIA) in Mexico City. She has a major on Communication and Human Development by the Panamericana University (UP) and one on “Compared Political Perspectives in Latin America and Europe” by the Complutense University of Madrid. Maria Elena has more than 18 years of experience on the social communication and information fields. On the past 7 years she has been researcher on subjects as the Information right and Transparency in Mexico.
 
She has been columnist for several magazines and newspapers all over the country. She also has participated as guest on several radio programs and television as main speaker on areas such as public information access, transparency on Mexico and the perspective of Mexican democracy nowadays. She is recognized as a specialized commentator on transparency and public information access in Mexican media.
 
She has taught on several courses and workshops at Higher Education Institutes and Mexican Non Governmental Organizations on the right of public information access. She also speaks to diverse government and civil audiences on numerous congress, round tables, seminars and panels around Mexico.

Nataša Pirc Musar
Nataša Pirc Musar was born in 1968 in Ljubljana. After graduating from the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana in 1992, she passed the bar examination in 1997. After completing her studies she was employed for six years at the Slovenian national television as a journalist and news presenter of the main news TV Dnevnik. Subsequently, she worked for five years as news presenter on “24 ur”, the central information programme of the largest commercial television broadcaster in Slovenia, POP TV.
 
She gained additional experience in journalism at CNN, and attended the Media Department of the Salford University in Manchester in the UK for two semesters. During

her studies she did her professional practice at BBC, Granada TV, Sky News, Reuters TV and Border TV.
 
She has also contributed newspaper articles and worked on radio. Striving for new knowledge, she moved in 2001 to the financial sector where she joined the largest Slovenian private financial corporation Aktiva Group as a Head of Corporate Communications. In April 2003 she became Director of Training and Communications Centre at the Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia. On July 15th, 2004, she was elected in the National Assembly to become the second slovenian commissioner for access to public information. She was nominated by the President of the Republic of Slovenia. From December 31, 2005 onwards, when Office of the Commissioner for Access to Public Information merged  with the Inspectorate for Personal Data Protection, Nataša Pirc Musar performs her function as an Information Commissioner.
 
Nataša Pirc Musar is fluent in Croatian/Serbian and English.

Issa Luna Pla is a full time researcher at the National University of Mexico, UNAM, in the Legal Research Institute, a Ph.D. on the Right to Information at Western University, Sinaloa, Mexico and a Master on Human Rights at London School of Economics and Political Sciences, UK. She has been fellow in the Programme on Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP), Oxford University, UK.

Luna’s published books include El derecho de acceso a la informaci۷blica, Mexico, UIA-Konrad Adenauer Foundation, 2002; and Agenda Setting de los Medios, UIA-Western University, Mexico 2003. She is director of the Center for International Studies on Transparency and Access to Information (CETA) based in Mexico City. Luna has written numerous articles in specialized journals and has been columnist in  Mexican newspapers and magazines.

Andrew Podger is National President of the Institute of Public Administration Australia and Adjunct Professor in public administration at both the ANU and Griffith University. He is also a consultant on health policy and public sector governance.

Before his retirement from the Australian Public Service in 2005, he chaired a task force for the Prime Minister on the delivery of health services in Australia.

Prior to that, he was the Public Service Commissioner for three years following six years as Secretary to the Department of Health and Aged Care.  He has also headed the Departments of Housing and Regional Development and Administrative Services.

Originally a mathematician, Andrew has had a long career in social policy and financial management.  Apart from the Public Service Commission and the departments he has headed, he has worked in the departments of Finance, Prime Minister and Cabinet, Social Security and Defence and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

He has been working as a government employee since 1981, mainly in forestry sector. He has also experience working with an international NGO for three years (as a secondee) before coming back to the Ministry of Forestry. Besides his main tasks in FORDA, he also involved actively in promoting transparency and good forestry governance in the Ministry of Forestry.

Ms. Pustay is the Director, Policy and Litigation, in the Office of Information and Privacy in the Justice Department of the United States of America.  She manages the Department of Justice's obligations related to the Freedom of Information Act.  Ms. Pustay's responsibilities include developing policy guidance on issues related to the FOIA; supervising the defense of FOIA litigation cases handled directly by OIP; and managing the Initial Request and Administrative staffs of OIP.

Charmaine Rodrigues is the UNDP’s Pacific Regional Parliamentary Support Advisor. In that role, she is also responsible for implementing the UNDP Pacific Centre’s activities in support of freedom of information in the Pacific. Prior to joining the UNDP in 2007, Charmaine worked with the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (New Delhi) as their Right to Information Coordinator for almost 3 years.

While at CHRI, Charmaine developed CHRI’s Pacific FOI Programme. Charmaine has also been a Programme Officer with the Australian Agency for International Development and worked briefly as a corporate lawyer in Australia. She has a BA/LLB (Hons) as well as a Master of Social Science (International Development).

One of two Deputy Commissioners for the UK, Graham has lead responsibility for promoting and enforcing access to official information under the UK’s FOI Act and Environmental Information Regulations. He also has managerial responsibility for the ICO in Northern Ireland and Wales.

Prior to his appointment in 2001, he enjoyed a career as a local government lawyer, working for four major local authorities in England over a 20 year period.  He holds a law degree from the University of Sheffield and a Diploma in Local Government Law and Practice.  He was admitted as a Solicitor in 1982.

Rick Snell is a senior lecturer in law at the University of Tasmania.  His research, ideas and teaching have been influential within Australia and internationally.
 
He has several research interests including government transparency, public sector governance, comparative administrative law (especially freedom of information and ombudsman) and the media.
  
Rick is a member of the Tasmanian Administrate Review Advisory Council which advises the Tasmanian Attorney-General on Administrative Law matters.  He was an elected and active member of the governing Council of the University of Tasmania from 2003-2006.

Tom Susman is a partner in the Washington, DC office of Ropes & Gray, where he conducts a diverse legislative and regulatory practice.

Professional Experience
Tom handles legislative matters on behalf of both large and small clients – businesses, trade associations, and nonprofit organizations – in a variety of industries. He has been active in seeking enactment of legislation, in obtaining appropriations for specific projects, in blocking or amending legislative proposals, and in counseling targets of congressional investigations. Typical projects have involved homeland security, energy, tax code amendments, regulatory reform, intellectual property protection, environmental protection, access to government information, Native American issues, and antitrust law reform.

Tom's regulatory practice extends to a wide variety of matters, including freedom of information and privacy issues, healthcare, energy efficiency, maritime safety, and regulation of organ procurement. He also counsels clients on antitrust and trade regulation matters, with an emphasis in the health care area, and represents clients responding to federal and state antitrust investigations.

Before joining Ropes & Gray in 1981, Tom served on Capitol Hill for over 11 years. He was Chief Counsel to the Senate Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure and General Counsel to the Antitrust Subcommittee and to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Honors & Awards
The Best Lawyers in America (2007)
United States Court of Federal Claims, "Golden Eagle Award” for Outstanding Service to the Court (Sept. 2002)

Professional & Civic Activities

Tom is in the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association, is past chairman of the ABA Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section, and served on the Board of Governors of the ABA. He is President of the D.C. Public Library Foundation, a Trustee and chair-elect of the National Judicial College, and on the Board of the National Conference on Citizenship.  He is also on the Advisory Boards of the National Security Archive and the NFIB Legal Foundation, and a member of the American Law Institute. Tom is chair of the Ethics Committee of the American League of Lobbyists, co-editor of the ABA’s Lobbying Manual (2005), and coauthor of the BNA Portfolio on “Business Uses of the Freedom of Information Act."  He teaches Lobbying and Legislative Process at the American University’s Washington College of Law, has frequently been called upon to testify before Congress, and has consulted with the governments of Shanghai, China and Peru on open government information and lobbying disclosure laws.

John Taylor is the Deputy Ombudsman for Victoria.  He was appointed in September 2004.  Prior to joining the office he was the Senior Assistant Ombudsman responsible for the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s State and Territory Offices and Corporate functions.

Mr Taylor has substantial experience in the Ombudsman jurisdiction and has been the author of numerous public reports relating to a wide range of State, Territory and Commonwealth Government agencies.

Beverley Wakem was appointed Ombudsman on 1 March 2005.  Ms Wakem's background is in broadcasting, public relations and consulting, much of the latter to the state sector.   Ms Wakem's broadcasting career in news, current affairs and general programming culminated in her appointment as Chief Executive of Radio New Zealand Limited in 1984 - a post she held until 1991.   During this period Beverley was also President of the Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union.

In 1991, Ms Wakem was appointed Commercial Director for Wrightson Limited, then a fully owned subsidiary of Fletcher Challenge Limited.
In 1992 she became General Manager, Human Resources and Corporate Affairs for the company.

From 1996 to 1997, Ms Wakem was Executive Chairman of Hill & Knowlton New Zealand and in September 1997 was appointed by the Government to the Higher Salaries Commission (now the Remuneration Authority).   She was reappointed to that body in 2001 and again in 2004 until her appointment as Ombudsman.
Ms Wakem was awarded a CBE in 1990 for services to broadcasting and the community.