Human rights and encryption
Procedures and transparency
### Procedures and transparency

Freedom of expression and the right to privacy (including the right to private communications) materially protect a certain behaviour or a personal state. It is well established in fundamental rights theory that substantive rights have to be complemented by procedural guaranties to be effective. Those procedural guarantees can be rights such as the [right to an effective remedy](/wiki/Right_to_an_effective_remedy "Right to an effective remedy"). However, it is important to acknowledge that those procedural rights must, similar to the substantive rights, be accompanied by specific procedural duties of governments without which the rights would erode. The substantial rights have to be construed in a way that they also contain the duty to make governance systems transparent, at least to the extent that allows citizens to assess who made a decision and what measures have been taken. In this aspect, transparency ensures accountability. It is the precondition to know about the dangers for fundamental rights and make use of the respective freedoms.


How would a lack of transparency affect accountability?