SECTOR 1 For instance, one of the dailies called Le Matinal spoke of a report which indicted six police commissioners. In front of the judge the journalist refused to reveal his source of information and was therefore sentenced. After some time the accused commissioners were sanctioned. Some people are of the opinion that we are going through a time of conlict between ethical and professional standards on one side, and judicial regulations on the other, and this calls for a solution. Scores: Individual scores: 1 Country does not meet indicator 2 Country meets only a few aspects of indicator 3 Country meets some aspects of indicator 4 Country meets most aspects of indicator 5 Country meets all aspects of the indicator Average score: 1.0 (2007=1.0 ; 2009=1.3) 1.8 Public information is easily guaranteed by law, to all citizens. accessible, One of the panelists exclaimed that “it is a project of the community”. Indeed, both the Constitution of the Republic of Benin and the law establishing HAAC, in its irst article, make provisions to guarantee access to information. here are also mechanisms for guaranteeing access to information especially through their records in the oicial gazette, which is the channel through which institutions of the Republic send their information. If they were published more often this would have, in certain cases, prevented some journalists from being sentenced for using administrative documents since the said documents would have been published anyway (laws, decrees …). Senior civil servants, who are the keepers of public information are subjected to the old legislations of the colonial era, which demands of them that they do not let out public information or else they will be ired since in Benin there is no law that permits any journalist to have access to public information. his is not found AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER BENIN 2011 81