Punjab clears right to information bill

LAHORE: Provincial legislators passed a transparency and right to information bill on Thursday despite severe criticism from opposition members who said the bill is “unclear” and “negates the freedom of speech” as enshrined in the constitution.

The Punjab Transparency and Right to Information (RIT) Bill 2013 -- which was tabled a day earlier by provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan – was tweaked and re-introduced with amendments by opposition and treasury bench members.

But not before the treasury benches rejected nine amendments made by the opposition and succeeded in getting 10 amendments passed.

The opposition bloc led by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf pointed out loopholes in the bill and compared it with the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa RTI Act 2013. A few treasury members who were part of committee No. 1, which deliberated the draft of the bill, expressed their reservations as well.

With a total of 25 clauses, the bill aims to provide transparency and freedom of information to ensure that citizens have improved access to public information; to make the government more accountable to citizens and to enforce the fundamental right of access to information in all matters of public importance as well as provide for ancillary matters.

The bill also states that public bodies will be proactive in the disclosure of functions and duties.

Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) legislator Ayesha Javed , a member of the Assembly’s special committee which considered the bill, said that the definition of various terms, like ‘national interest’ and ‘third party ‘are not clear. She also claimed that the bill is silent on providing protection to whistleblowers.

She said that the House just passed the bill carrying words like ‘prescribed’ and ‘may’ means further work will have to be completed by bureaucrats without the check of the house.

She said the website of the RTI should be interlinked with all the websites of the department but that the act is silent in this regard.

PTI’s Sibtain Khan said the bill is against the spirit of article 19 A of the Constitution and that the PML-N leadership is using it to portray itself as a party that believes in fundamental rights.

PTI’s Dr Nausheen Hamid said that the Punjab RTI does not measure perks and privileges of Information Commissioners (ICs) while the K-P bill describes that ICs will get equal to a high court judge. She said that the Punjab Bill is silent on the constitution of the Punjab Information Commission, its powers and selection criteria of ICs. She said that the Public Information Officer in Punjab bill will be trained by bureaucrats.

She said that the proposed Punjab Information Commission is not authorised to recommend changes in the rules of government departments in consonance with Article 19 A of the Constitution.

She also said that the mechanism of penalising the bureaucracy for blocking information and defying the directives of the commission has also been left at the discretion of the bureaucracy since the rules in this regard allow them to find ways to save their skins.

According to her, the ICs can only be removed if they find misconduct instead of poor performance. She said that if the IC disobeys the chief minister, then he/she would be removed from the PIC.

At the end, she said that the K-P IC is responsible to not only train the PIO but also recommend changes in the rules of government department to facilitate the province’s RTI Bill. She said that in the K-P Bill, the procedure to remove ICs follows the rules of removal of a high court judge.


Published in The Express Tribune, December 13^th, 2013.