The News International: Islamabad:
Friday, March 24, 2017.
The Centre
for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI) has urged the Punjab government to
constitute ’Search Committee’ to appoint information commissioners.
The Punjab
Transparency and Right to Information Act 2013 which scores 139 out of 140
points on CPDI score Sheet of Right to Information Laws of Pakistan will
largely be useless if Punjab government does not take immediate steps to
appoint information commissioners. Three years tenure of present information
commissioners of Punjab Information Commission is coming to an end as the
tenures of Chief Information Commissioner, Mazhar Hussain Minhas and Ahmed Raza
Tahir will end on March 31 and the tenure of Mukhtar Ahmed Ali will end on
April 30, 2017.
The CPDI
urges Punjab government to constitute search committee to ensure merit-based
appointment of information commissioners keeping in mind the eligibility
criterion as mentioned in Section 5 of the Punjab Transparency and Right to
Information Act 2013. The eligibility criterion for commissioners set under
Section 5 of the RTI Act states one of the members needs to be person who has
been or is qualified to be judge of high court, a person who is or has been in
the service of Pakistan in basic scale 21 or equivalent and a person from civil
society having degree based on 16 years of education from a recognised
institution and experience not less than 15 years in the field of mass
communication, academic or right to information.
The timely
appointment of new information commissioners is also important for the proper
hand-over of the charge by the out-going information commissioners and that
they could apprise them about their obligations regarding timely disposal of
complaints, ensuring proactive disclosure of information, creating mass
awareness about rights of people under the law, imparting trainings to Public
Information Officers (PIOs), monitoring on the compliance by public bodies, and
publishing its annual report.
.JPG)
.JPG)
