The
Hans India: New Delhi: Tuesday, 08 December 2015.
Seeking
information is basis for filing petition and sometimes petition becomes
primary, action about which can be sought under RTI Act. The RTI does not
specifically mention that it could be used for redressal of grievances. But
interestingly, the citizens and employees are using it for that purpose also.
In the absence of assured right to petition or services, the RTI became only
resort to seek services and compensation for the lack of access to services.
Even as the
Right to Information (RTI) Act completed 10 years, the universe has completed
eight hundred years of Magna Carta, which agreed on an individual’s right to
something against the powers-that-be. Magna Carta (Latin for "the Great
Charter"), also called Magna Carta Libertatum (Latin for "the Great
Charter of the Liberties"), is a peace charter agreed to by King John of
England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215.
First drafted
by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the unpopular King and a
group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection
for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and
limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a
council of 25 barons. Neither side stood behind their commitments, and the
charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, leading to the First Barons' War.
The peace
treaty between the British king and the rebel barons failed but it provided a
new framework for the relationship between the king and his subjects. It has
become a potent, international rallying cry against the arbitrary use of power.
Most of the 63 clauses granted by King John dealt with specific grievances
relating to his rule. The RTI has changed relationship between the citizens and
the government.
The right to
petition the government for redressal of grievances is a significant right. But
this right did not become a statutory right as the governments are still
hesitating to provide Right to Service legislation, which is supposed to reduce
corruption among government officials and increase transparency and public
accountability. Madhya Pradesh enacted
the Right to Service Act on 18th August 2010 and Bihar was the second to enact
this bill on 25 July 2011. Several other States Bihar, Delhi, Punjab,
Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh Kerala, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand
have introduced similar legislations for effectuating the right to service to
the citizen.
Right of
public services
These laws
commonly grant of "right to public services," which are to be
provided to the public by the designated official within a stipulated
time-frame. Some of the common public services, which are to be provided within
the fixed time-frame as a right under the Acts, include issuing caste, birth,
marriage and domicile certificates, electric connections, voter’s card, ration
cards, copies of land records, etc.
Similar to
RTI Act, this law also provides for the aggrieved to approach the First
Appellate Authority and then the Second Appellate Authority. Its origin is in the ‘right to petition’ as
assured in Magna Carta 1215. The Article 44 of the Charter of Fundamental
Rights of the European Union ensures the right to petition to the European
Parliament . The right can be traced back to the Basic Law for the Federal
Republic of Germany, the Bill of Rights
1689 and the Petition of Right (1628),
How do we ask
without any guaranteed right to ask? Right to ask is basic, and thus right to
petition is also a basic need.
Petitioning is equated with questioning, or challenging the authority of
the Emperor. Kings considered it as seditious libel. It’s a complaint against
the royal rule. They looked down on the seeker of something. The people should
take whatever is given, should not ask. Right to demand was unimaginable in
dictatorship regimes world over.
When the
right to petition was first contemplated, the human rights as an idea or a
provision of law was not known. Magna Carta did not remain the same, some are
deleted, some were rewritten, most of them repealed. Still it remains the
cornerstone of the British Constitution. Only three clauses of the 1225 Magna
Carta remain on the statute book today.
One defends the liberties and rights of the English Church, another
confirms the liberties and customs of London and other towns, but the third is
the most famous:
No free man
shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or
outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we
proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful
judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell, to no one deny or
delay right or justice. Right to petition in Magna Carta in clause 63 has
altered the situation. It says:
“…the peace
and liberties we have granted and confirmed to them by this our present
Charter, so that if we … or any one of our officers shall in anything be at
fault towards anyone, or shall have broken any one of the articles of this
peace or of this security, and the offence be notified to four barons of the foresaid
five and twenty, the said four barons shall repair to us and, laying the
transgression before us, petition to have the transgression redressed without
delay..”.
Right to
Redressal. It provided time of 40 days for redressal, i.e., right to redressal
is also given as under:
“…And if we
have not corrected the transgression […] within forty days, reckoning from the
time that it has been intimated to us […] the four barons aforesaid shall refer
the matter to the rest of the five and twenty barons…”
Right to
rebel: It will be totally unimaginable that the consequences include even right
to rebel, if grievance is not redressed, it says:
“…and those
five and twenty barons shall together with the community of the whole realm
disdain and distress us in all possible ways, namely by seizing our castles,
lands, possessions and in any other way they can until redress has been
obtained as they deem fit, saving harmless our own person, and the persons of
our queen and children; and when redress has been obtained, they shall resume
their old relations toward us…”
Part of right
to freedom of speech: Right to petition is important even today during these
modern days of democratic rule of law. Most appropriately the right to
information is an added value to that eight hundred year old right to
petition.
Right to
dissent: Right to
petition embraces the right to express dissent since it reflects the spirit of
liberty. It cannot be denied and its denial will be considered as degradation.
Seeking
information is basis for filing petition and sometimes petition becomes
primary, action about which can be sought under RTI Act. The RTI does not
specifically mention that it could be used for redressal of grievances. But
interestingly, the citizens and employees are using it for that purpose also.
In the absence of assured right to petition or services, the RTI became only
resort to seek services and compensation for the lack of access to services.
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