Daily Mirror: Sri Lanka: Saturday,
February 04, 2017.
The Right to
Information (RTI) Act will come into effect today, February 03, 2017.
The Sri
Lankan RTI Act is ranked 10th best in the world.
Sri Lanka has
scored 121 out of a possible 150 in a rating programme founded by Access Info
Europe and the Centre for Law and Democracy based in the USA. The government is
making good use of it for image building in the international community.
Much of the
work that went into make the RTI Act what it is, was by two eminent
personalities; internationally renowned legal academic Kishali Pinto Jayawardne
and internationally recognised former UNESCO employed Communication Specialist
Wijeyananda Jayaweera, whose draft inputs as we’ve heard, were not always
readily accepted by State and political representatives.
That
reluctance will certainly remain and will lead to bottlenecks in
implementation.
To begin
with, the RTI Act is placed against an unwanted, unnecessary provision in the
19th Amendment to the Constitution, even before the RTI Act was completed. In
fact there was no necessity to define the parameters of citizens’ right to
information in Constitution 14a (2) introduced to the 19 Amendment.
If the
Yahapalana government was serious about citizens’ right to information, it
needed only a mentioning as a Fundamental Right in the Constitution. Instead
the Government has made certain it could interpret the scope of the RTI Act
through the Constitution that would supersede any and all provisions of an
Act.
Members of
the RTI Commission will have to give teeth to the RTI Act and abide by the
Constitution as well. The Commissioners are therefore left with the burden of
ensuring information is provided as requested by citizens according to the RTI
Act, without contravening the Constitution.
That burden
would be quite heavy if the war affected citizens from North and East decide to
use the RTI Act to trace their missing family members.
Applications
for the purpose will then be handed over to Information Officers in Police
Stations or in area Superintendent’s office. But they can be refused citing the
Constitutional Provision in 14 a(2) that says, despite the citizens’ right to
information, any information that “…..in the interests of national security,
territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or
crime, for the protection of health or morals and of the reputation or the
rights of others…” will not be made available to citizens.
Such refusals
lead to interpretations for which the RTI Act provides for applicants to appeal
to the RTI Commission for a ruling.
Thus any
refusal on such requests for information will no doubt have appeals reaching
the RTI Commission. Such appeals would test the ability of the Commissioners to
honour the right of citizens to have information they seek and also stay within
the Constitution.
A Catch-22
situation it would be for the Commissioners and certainly for those, who,
during the Rajapaksa era, flew to Geneva annually to defend Human Rights and
against crimes allegedly committed during the war.
In essence,
this Constitutional Provision under 14a (2) may leave the RTI Act irrelevant to
the war affected North and East.
Now, that the
OMP Act has also been left deep frozen, denials under the RTI Action
information they most need and have been demanding for almost seven years,
would only mean this Government too plays for publicity and for the Sinhala
South.
The RTI Act
would thus become a tool for the Sinhala South if they wish to hold the
Government “accountable”.
That
possibility too is wholly uncertain given the political reluctance of this
Government to have the RTI Act functioning.
As exposed by
Namini Wijedasa in her Sunday Times (January 29, 2017) write up titled “RTI Act
Gazetted sans RTI Commissions’ fees, appeals rules” the Yahapalana Government
ignored the RTI Act in allocating funds in Budget 2017 for its secretarial and
office functioning.
The President
had realised this after he said the RTI Act would be made effective on February
3. The RTI Commission also needs to be housed with staff and all these need
money, which the Wickramasinghe Government has ignored.
Thus the
President has the Parliament to allocate a beggarly sum of Rs.3 million from
the Rs.1.8 billion supplementary estimate.
Added is the
fact that even the Commission is not transparent in their own work.
To date they
have not publicly spelt out what their programme of work in getting the RTI Act
functioning and their time schedule in having that work done.
If such a
work plan had been made public, Namini Wijedasa would not have had reasons to
expose those rules, appeals and required fees and the date from when the public
can file applications for information have not been Gazetted.
Also, the
public need to know how the RTI Commission Secretariat would be staffed, for
its efficiency decides how effective the Commissioners could be. In addition to
these hurdles, even if crossed, there are two major draw backs the Government
will have to work on, but doesn’t seem to have a political will for.
The State
bureaucracy has over very many decades evolved as “sole custodians” of
information, they treat as “State Secrets”.
This has led
to an office culture that denies access even to unimportant trivial
information, often to the colleague in the adjoining table. This jealous
possession of information in office culture that is lethargic, inefficient and
also corrupt, make information a saleable commodity, the public needs to buy
through “some contact”. In very corrupt contexts, the higher ups also don’t
allow information out, which they feel would be to their disadvantage. This culture of “we decide what can be given”
is a heavily entrenched factor in the State administration, even politicians
run into with fury.
Deputy
Minister Ramanayake’s very recent spat with the Divulapitiya Divisional
Secretary (DS) and their administrative association immediately deciding to
protest over Ramanayake’s alleged nasty verbal hit back over the phone, is all
about a corrupt, lethargic and inefficient officialdom refusing to provide
information, the public needs to know.
This
parasitical culture cannot be changed by expensive cosy workshops and seminars
that teach about the RTI Act and the procedures that ought to be adopted in
offices. This needs to be treated as archaic and rusty culture of backward men
and women.
It needs
redefining the administration in terms of social responsibility.
It is the
whole system that needs a shakeup, including Sri Lanka Institute for
Development Administration (SLIDA) that had been turned into a business
venture.
That change
also needs a political will by the Government, which is sadly lacking. The
Government is also not willing to be accountable despite all rhetoric. This
Government cannot be any more open than the Rajapaksa regime for reasons no
different.
For the RTI
Act to swing into force, it needs the Governmental push that is not there and
the social pull which is also missing.
In Sri Lankan
context our society and the general public also don’t know they have a right to
demand information.
In fact it is
the demand for information in 1994 by ordinary farmers in agrarian Rajasthan,
who were organised as “Masdoor Kishan Shakthi Sangatan” that eventually paved
the way for the Indian RTI Act in year 2000.
We lack that
determined aggressiveness. Our social culture is a dependent culture. It is not
even a consumer culture in a free market economy.
In this very
timid, subservient culture there is no demand.
It is the
supply that decides the market. The middle-class too wouldn’t demand
information. They would rather pay for that right than stand for it.
Thus the norm
which is now the rule is for the public to go after some political catcher to
get anything done.
They wouldn’t
want to apply for information as they feel and believe, as “political power”
brings answers and quite fast too.
A few days
ago a trishaw driver told me:
“They don’t
work in our country. They’ll take ages. It is easier and quick to go through
our member (Talking in Sinhala the “member” he meant was the LG
politician).
Placed along
a rotten office working culture, the public mind set too goes against the RTI
Act. Unlike and different to all other Acts, the RTI Act would only be
functional and effective, if people start using it.
Therefore,
there is a serious need to galvanise conscious, committed support in society
for the RTI Act to be effective and rightly implemented. It needs tremendous effort against political
reluctance of the Government to have it working, against the existing State
office working culture and against public attitudes that prefer the status quo
in a dependent social culture.
It is a
gloomy picture no doubt. But reading the reality right, a few concerned and
conscious citizens kick starting a pilot project in a district or two,
demanding information about hospitals and health, about DCB allocations by
elected MPs, could change the whole picture, though not overnight. In short,
here is an Act that should not be allowed to lapse, however difficult it is to
have a good breakthrough. And to be optimistic, the strength of the RTI
Commission matters too.