Maurice Frankel

Britain got its Freedom of Information Act in 2000, but the campaign behind it had been winning smaller rights for years. Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information since 1987, drafted and steered a run of private member's bills that gave people the legal right to see their own social work and housing files and their medical reports, then spent the late 1990s fighting to stop the government's draft act being watered down. Since the act came into force in 2005 he has defended it against repeated attempts to restrict it and run training to help journalists and members of the public use it well.