The News International: Islamabad:
Friday, September 02, 2016.
The Sindh
government has drafted Right to Information (RTI) law that will protect the
corrupt in order to save their “dignity” and penalise the requester by
inquiring about their intentions for obtaining information.
Any
whistleblower will share information at personal risk as no protection has been
promised to such individuals in the newly drafted law of Sindh. The proposed
law has widened its scope by brining courts in its ambit but excludes the Chief
Minister Secretariat.
The
provincial government of the PPP has long been promising a robust legislation
on transparency but practical steps have belied the expectations of RTI
activists. The previous draft introduced last year was a replica of the Sindh
Freedom of Information Act 2006 which is good for nothing. That draft was
withdrawn after it courted criticism from transparency advocates.
The Sindh
Transparency and Right to Information Act 2016 draft will make Sindh third
province to adopt a new law, if approved, after Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab.
The shortcomings of KP and Punjab legislation on transparency notwithstanding,
they are far better than this draft, analysis indicates.
Neither the
KP law nor Punjab’s declares that information can be withheld in order to
preserve the dignity of a citizen, a clause introduced only by Sindh. Article
10 of the draft law has enlisted the exceptions, the reasons for denying access
to information.
Included
among them is 10(K) that says the requester can be refused information if that
“affects the dignity of a citizen” thus raising doubts about the intention of
government to block any access to documents that could unmask the corruption of
government authorities. This is in contrast with the conditions described for
requesting information as indicates article 8(2) that reads: “The applicant
shall be required to provide reasons for request for information….”
The Centre
for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI) that works on RTI has noted this
clause with great concern. “It will give discretionary power to a public
official to agree or disagree with the reasons provided by an applicant,” said
Zahid Abdullah, coordinator of Coalition of RTI, presently associated with
CPDI.
Since, right
of access to information is a fundamental right under the Constitution, he
argued, a citizen should not be bound to provide reasons for exercising this
right. Interestingly, this condition was not even placed by Sindh Freedom of
Information Act 2006, currently in practice, that is considered a toothless law
and averse to transparency. No such provision can be found in KP or Punjab laws
either. Instead, they have specifically prohibited inquiring about the
intentions of requester for seeking any information.
While the
proposed law of Sindh is concerned about the “dignity of a citizen” lest it is
affected in case of information sharing about him, the law doesn’t offer any
protection to the whistleblowers who would share any details of wrongdoing in
government departments.
The KP RTI
law stands out in this regard by protecting citizen but not of Punjab. As the
questions were raised after the passage of Punjab law in 2014 without any
clause about the whistleblower, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had then promised
introducing a separate law exclusively dealing with the whistleblower, it has
not yet seen the light of the day even after two years.
Sindh’s draft
law appears to test the patience of a requester who will have to wait for 45
days for the provision of information and then file complaint to the
information commission in case of denial from the concerned department. Article
8(3) of the proposed law reads: “The designated official shall respond to the
applicant as soon as possible and in any case within 30 working days. In case,
the required information is not readily available, the designated official
shall intimate the applicant and taken another 15 working days for responding
to the application.”
The
responding period in KP and Punjab is lesser than what has been described in
Sindh’s law. The KP law requires the provision of information within 10 working
days with a grace period of as much days in case the requisite details are not
readily available. The law in Punjab gives 14 working days to the designated
official and as much extra time in case the processing of details is
time-taking.
Another point
of note in Sindh’s law is minimum punishment for the officers refusing
information when compared with other two provinces. The maximum penalty for
defiant officer has been prescribed in article 15 as a “fine which may extend
to 10,000 rupees” in contrast with Rs25,000 in KP and Rs50,000 in Punjab.
In the
definition of public bodies prescribed under Article 2(h), the courts and
governor secretariats are included among other government and semi-government
departments. Only institution missing is the Chief Minister Secretariat meaning
thereby the highest provincial office can’t be called into questions in terms
of its performances and spending of public money.
There is no
exemption for CM Secretariat in Punjab and KP laws in contrast to draft law of
Sindh. However, KP has courted controversy in 2015 by excluding provincial
assembly from the ambit of RTI law and later promised to reverse this amendment
in the ‘next’ assembly session. Many sessions have been held without taking up
this promised task.
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