The Daily Star. 26 May 2012
Mahdy Hassan
The modern world is now booming with the call for meaningful democracy needing transparency and accountability in the statecraft and in that view of the matter the subject of people’s right of access to information has gained importance. There appears to have been a universal recognition of the claim and inevitability for the establishment of people’s right of access to information. The signal of the demand has also touched our shores. In the preamble of our Constitution, there is the pledge that it shall be fundamental aim of the state to realize through democratic process a socialist society, freedom from exploitation a society in which the rule of law, fundamental human rights and freedom, equality and justice, political, economic and social will be secured for all the citizens. Article 39 of the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and expression to every citizen, subject to certain reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of the security of the state, relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence. It has been said that the notion of freedom of thought and conscience and of speech and also the notion of rule of law become nugatory if the public, for the sake of which the state exists, is deprived of access to information. It would be profitable to have a look at the international covenants, documents etc. respecting the right to information. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 reads: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers” Article 19 (2) of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966 reads: “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice”. The exercise of the above-mentioned right carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may, therefore, be subject to certain restrictions but this shall only be such as provided by law and necessity: a) for respect of rights and reputation of others, b) for protection of national security or public order.
Thus under the aforesaid two international instruments the state parties are obliged to make available to their citizens all kinds of information except those that are necessary to protect national security and avoid interference with the privacy of citizen. Incidentally, Bangladesh has signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966 on September 6, 2000. The Vienna Convention, Limburg Declaration and Bangalore Colloquium exhorted those human rights as pronounced in the International Bill of Human Rights must be reflected in the domestic laws of the state parties. The Republic of Bangladesh, a party to the above-mentioned international covenants and documents, therefore, has both moral and legal obligation to conform to the international norm respecting public access to information resting with the state machinery, public functionaries and non-government organizations registered with the government. For the sake of transparency in the democratic process and good governance in our country, public access to information appears essential. Again, freedom of information is indispensable for a citizen to bring his grievances before the administrative authority or the Court of law for redress. If the general public remain ignorant about the affairs of the state touching on their fate and welfare it will amount to travesty of democracy.
For this reason for ensuring right to information an Act named Tottho Odhikar Ain 2009 (The Right to information act,2009) has been enacted by the government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. This Act was enacted for ensuring free flow of people’s right to information. The right to information is needed for empowerment of the people. Free flow of information is required for ensuring transparency and accountability in all the state organs. It is one of the most important tools to make a country free from corruption and to establish good governance as well. The definition of information is very wide-ranging under the Act. Any memo, book, design, map, contract, data, log book, order, notification, document, sample, letter, report, accounts, project proposal, photograph, audio, video, drawing, painting, film, any instrument done through electronic process, machine readable record, and any other documentary material regardless of its physical form or characteristics, and any copy thereof in relation to the constitution, structure and official activities of any authority is included within the scope of this Act. So, there is little scale to escape the information seeker on any excuse by the information provider.
Section 4 of the RTI Act provides that every citizen shall have the right to information from the authority, and the authority shall, on demand from a citizen, be bound to provide him with the information. So, the right is more or less absolute in nature. Though there are some reasonable restrictions exits in this regard. The meaning of authority is also comprehensive to almost any body or organization. And the right to information is defined as the right to obtain any information from any authority. The procedure for seeking and providing information to and from any authority is described in section 8 of the Act. Most creditable part of the Act is the establishment of the Information Commission, which reflected the earnestness and sincerity of the government to the acknowledgement of people’s right to know. By establishing this institution, the government has proved due diligence to implement the law. As per Chapter 4 of this Act, the Information Commission is established to give effect to provisions of the Act. The powers and functions of the commission are reactive in nature. Therefore, if any complaint is filed to the commission alleging any authority to deny providing information sought for or any purpose of the Act is not being fulfilled by any authority as mentioned in the Act, the commission intervened into the process and take measures as it deem appropriate. In doing so, the commission enquires into the complaint and information brought to its notice. If any office does not appoint any officer-in-charge to deal with the matter, it is within the jurisdiction of the commission to take action against such office. The commission deals any issues related to the information or any issues that is covered under the Act. The information commission was empowered with the powers of the civil court as per Civil Procedure Code of 1908 (Act V of 1908).
But this act is not followed everywhere. We are so astonished after reading the report published by Prothom Alo on 15 may 2012 where it is said that the information commission has been giving false information since one year. And even it is seen in its report that most of the time the particular form given by information commission is not used at the time of giving information. The chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Dr. Mizanur Rahman is quoted to have said that the information has no freedom. The information is in chain in the hand of money, politics and influential persons of the society. He also said that the free flow of the information must be ensured but the government doses not want to inform the information to the people because if the people know the information, they do not obey the government. (Prothom Alo, 15 may 2012).
The writer is a student of law, University of Dhaka.
Right to Information - CRTI 