Express Tribune: Islamabad: Thursday,
January 26, 2017.
In an effort
to discourage the government from using the pretext of national security to
place unjustified restrictions on the right to information, a Senate body has
resolved that any ‘corrupt practice’ or ‘human rights violations’ that involve
public institutions including those run by the security establishment will be
liable to be shared publicly.
This was
decided in a meeting of the Senate Select Committee on the Right to Information
Bill, 2016 which met with Farhatullah Babar in the chair on Wednesday. It
discussed the Freedom of Information Act of the UK and other related laws of
Bangladesh and India.
Former
information minister Pervaiz Rashid, Syed Shibli Faraz, Mukhtiar Ahmad Dhamrah,
Rubina Khalid, Minister of State for Information, Broadcasting and National
Heritage Marriyum Aurangzeb, besides senior officials of the ministries of
Information and Broadcasting, and Law and Justice attended the meeting.
Babar, while
discussing the clause ‘exclusion of certain record’, said: “Information from
some institutions has always been withheld in the name of national security or
some other excuse.”
“I have
personally experienced this. Any such information sought by parliamentarians is
denied to them on the pretext of national security or national interests hence
muzzling the information,” he said. The PPP senator, while quoting the
Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of Expression and Access
to Information, noted: “Governments should not block access to information on
issues and incidents where there are reasonable grounds to believe that
violations of human rights have been committed.”
Babar said
the guiding principle should be that if the relevant information causes less
harm and more public good, then it should be released. “The same is being
followed in the UK, India and Bangladesh,” he said, suggesting that Pakistan
should follow the same principle for transparency.
Rashid
suggested that a parliamentary oversight committee should be constituted to
look into issues that pertain to national security. “The body would be briefed
by the institution that considers the information classified, and then the fate
of such information should be left at the discretion of the members of the
committee.”
To this Babar
replied that this could only be done if the RTI commission was made
independent, empowered and authoritative, maintaining that “I’ve witnessed to
pressure being exerted by invisible forces on parliamentary bodies and it would
be difficult for them to withstand such pressure”.
The committee
members including the minister of state for information agreed to insert the
clause to the bill suggested by the chair that “anything that involves
corruption or human rights violations should be shared by the public sector
body from which the information is being sought”.
.JPG)
.JPG)
