Legalising secrecy
POLITICIANS complain about the establishment’s intrusion in their sphere. Mostly, these complaints are grounded in reality. However, the politicians fail to wrest the initiative from the civil-military bureaucracy even when an opportunity presents itself and when the Constitution and democratic principles are on their side.
One example is the Right of Access to Information Bill, 2017, (RAI) moved in the Senate on May 15, 2017.
Both the PML-N and PPP had committed in the Charter of Democracy that an effective right to information law would be enacted and the Freedom of Information Ordinance, 2002, repealed. It took the politicians 11 years to table in the Senate a bill — and that too one which aims at legalising secrecy, instead of providing citizens and journalists access to information held by public bodies in the light of widely accepted principles of effective right to information legislation.
The primary purpose of legislation on right to information is to ensure accountability of the executive branch. The RAI Bill, 2017, defeats this purpose. Whether or not a particular official document should be made available to the public can be a contentious matter between citizens and officials. That is why democracies around the world make institutional arrangements to decide on contested issues regarding information disclosure, depending on the merit of the case, and keeping the public’s best interest in mind.
In short, independent and autonomous information commissions are established, giving representation to persons from the bureaucracy, judiciary and civil society, to decide whether the benefits of disclosure would outweigh possible harm where matters involving national security, privacy, relations with other states, etc are concerned.
As a principle, any information that may expose corruption, criminal wrongdoing, other serious breaches of the law, or human rights abuse, or that may cause serious harm to public safety or the environment is disclosed. But instead of empowering the proposed Pakistan commission on access to information, the bill empowers federal ministers to decide what people should or should not know.
Section 7 pertains to ‘Exclusion of certain record’ and its subsection (f) refers to “record declared as classified by the minister-in-charge of federal government, provided that the minister-in-charge of the federal government will have to record reasons as to why the harm from disclosure of information outweighs public interest, and further that information pertaining to allegation of corruption and violation of human rights shall not be excluded”.
Politicians should jettison the RAI Bill.
If nowhere in the world are ministers trusted to disclose information in the public interest, why should our country be an exception? When have our politicians been known as champions of transparency? Why and how would they be able to resolve a conflict of interest?
The Centre for Law and Democracy, Canada, which ranks right to information laws on their level of compliance with standards of effective right to information legislation, has given the RAI Bill only 105 points out of 150. Sri Lanka scores 131, India 128, the Maldives 116 and Bangladesh 107.
Interestingly, the Senate Committee on Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage, with representation of all major political parties, approved an effective law ie the Right to Information Bill (RTI) in 2014. However, in 2015, a committee was formed to review that bill ‘in the name of the changing’ security situation. Did the government, civil bureaucracy or establishment, individually, have a part to play in this, or did the three collude to opt for the RAI Bill at the expense of the RTI Bill?
Had the security establishment had concerns, the centre could have allayed these by studying the Indian Right to Information Act, 2005, which exempts RAW and other security organisations from having to disclose information, except that which pertains to corruption and human rights violations. Instead, the centre opted for the RAI Bill modelled on the Freedom of Information Ordinance, 2002, which will protect the interests of both politicians and bureaucracy.
All is not lost. The RAI Bill is not law yet. The centre should discard this bill in favour of the RTI Bill earlier approved by the Senate committee. Even if the government insists on the RAI Bill for political reasons, it should remove Sections 6 and 7 — there’s no need for separate lists of records of what is to be shared or not, in the presence of exceptions listed in Section 16 of the bill. The proposed information commission should be empowered to decide on disclosures in the public interest. There is need for informed debate on the matter. If enacted in its present shape, the government will only be legalising secrecy.
The writer is an author and rights activist.
Twitter: @XahidAbdullah
Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2017