When the PML-N and the PPP signed the charter of democracy in May 2006, they agreed to draft a law to give citizens their right to information. “Access to information will become law after parliamentary debate and public scrutiny,” the clause read.
Yet, the PPP forgot about it, whereas the PML-N, which had promised this law in its 2013 election manifesto, has just passed the law.
That’s a good step - only that the PML-N forgot the ‘parliamentary debate’ and ‘public scrutiny’ part, as a result of which the RTI Bill 2017 does not truly ensure free flow of information.
There are two major issues with the RTI bill. The first of these revolve around the section 6 of the law that declares what is to be construed as public record. Having a section define a public record is by itself very limiting.
Under the RTI bill, for instance, if a citizen of this country wants to find out how much travel expense did Islamabad’s DC claim, or how many campaigns the environment ministry did to ensure that the law banning the production and use of plastic bags is implemented, then she cannot find out such information, because the law has no provisions for it.
Amer Ejaz the Executive Director of Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives – a civil society organization that has been working actively on RTI issues over the last many years – says the very idea of narrowing down definitions of public record is flawed.
Referring to global principles of RTI laws, Ejaz says a good RTI should be interpreted and applied broadly, and only the exceptions should be narrowly defined - and not otherwise.
The second major issue lies in the domain of harm test. As per best international practices – the ones which are practiced in Punjab and the KP as well, it is the chief of the independent information commission who gets to decide whether and why the harm from the disclosure of information outweighs public interest and benefits thereof.
In the RTI bill 2017 (section 7), however, that power to exercise that harm test lies with the relevant minister in charge.
This is a clear conflict of interest; a minister who should be under public scrutiny at all times by means of the implementation of the RTI should not get to decide what information can be excluded from the disclosure requirements.
In fact giving the minister in charge the right to exercise the harm test goes against the very preamble of the law where it states that the “government believes in transparency and the right to have access to information to.…….promote the purposes of making the government more accountable to its people.” Can the government be made more accountable when its ministers have the right to decide what to disclose to the public and what not? Such power must lie with the independent information commission.
The RTI bill 2017 may have been passed by the national assembly and the Senate, but there is still some hope to prevent such gross faults in the bill. The president has the powers to send the bill back to the parliament, advising them to review this bill and prevent it from become a wrong step forward.
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