The Nation: PK: Friday, August 25, 2017.
The Punjab
government has been urged by the Civil Society Organization (CSOs) to ensure
enforcement of the “Punjab Transparency and Right to information act 2013”.
The
participants of the special meeting called for “Assessing the implementation of
right to information” held under the aegis of Centre for Social Justice (CSJ)
was joined by civil society organizations namely; Association of Women for
Awareness and Motivation, Bytes for All, Cecil and Iris Chaudhry Foundation,
and National Commission for Justice and Peace.
Peter Jacob,
the executive director CSJ while speaking of implementation of Punjab ‘Right To
Information’ (RTI) law, emphasized that RTI had become a constitutional right
since 2010 through 18th amendment under Article 19-A. The Punjab government
passed and set up the Commission which was functioning Punjab Transparency and
Right to Information Act 2013 till April 2017. However, the government failed
to make necessary appointments of Commissioners to the Punjab Information
Commission (PIC) for past four months which was equivalent to interfering with
this guaranteed fundamental right of the public of Pakistan.
CSOs resolved
that it is responsibility of the Punjab government to appoint Commissioners of
the PIC and provide them with sufficient staff and other resources for this
institution, since RTI cannot be materialized without independent, meaningful
and delivering human rights institutions.
The
participants of consultation made the following recommendations to the Punjab
government for effective implementation of the law concerning transparency and
right to information in the province:
1-We urge
Chief Minister of Punjab to appoint Commissioners of Punjab Information
Commission according to the criterion mentioned in Section 5 of Punjab RTI law
2013 as soon as possible.
2-All
government bodies should ensure the designation of Public Information Officers
in respective departments and promotion of proactive disclosure of information
to citizens.
3-The
government should undertake awareness campaign to make people aware about the
RTI law and implementation mechanism.
.JPG)
.JPG)
