Citizens’ right to know and the long wait for an Information Commission

For two years, citizens’ call to fill the vacant posts of the Information Commission of Bangladesh has gone largely unheeded, leaving it unable to perform its essential statutory role. A gazette notification issued on July 9 by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting confirmed the reconstitution of a selection committee to recommend candidates for the posts of chief information commissioner and two information commissioners—and there has been news of a call for applications from interested candidates by the committee subsequently—but no further developments have since been publicly reported. What happens to a legal right when the very institution created to protect it can no longer perform its essential function?

Over the past two years, citizens have continued to seek information and press public authorities for accountability, demonstrating both the resilience of the Right to Information Act and the consequences of leaving citizens largely on their own to enforce a right guaranteed by law. A review of RTI cases during this period reveals citizens seeking information on hospitals, schools, roads, public expenditure, social-security benefits, land administration, electricity, the environment, and local government. They were not pursuing abstract notions of transparency, but trying to solve problems affecting everyday life.

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Citizens sought information about absentee doctors, medicine allocations, procurement, ambulance services, dialysis facilities, vaccination, and unauthorised charges. At the Nilphamari Mother and Child Health Welfare Centre, RTI disclosure reportedly exposed prolonged unauthorised absence of medical personnel, affecting services to thousands of mothers and children. At the Nilphamari 250-bed Hospital, more than 50 RTI applications were reportedly ignored before dialogue with officials helped secure information and service improvements. Or consider public money. Citizens asked about government vehicles and fuel expenditure, road budgets, contractor lists, work-completion certificates, and procurement. In one case concerning trees around the Teesta canal, RTI information showed that 342 government trees had been sold for Tk 24.7 lakh, leading citizens to question their valuation.

The infrastructure cases are particularly revealing. A road in Saidpur had remained problematic for about a year. After an RTI application sought information about its budget and completion, the work was reportedly completed within a day, although officials did not supply the requested information. Elsewhere, RTI inquiries helped restart an incomplete road and prompted official inspection of an unrepaired bridge.

This illustrates one of the most intriguing findings: sometimes the question itself produces an answer in the form of action. RTI applications reportedly contributed to roads being completed, a bridge being inspected, dengue-control measures being undertaken, a waste bin being installed, dormant electricity infrastructure being activated, a missing citizen charter being displayed, an ambulance being opened for public use, and an unauthorised veterinary fee being withdrawn. The prospect of having to explain an administrative failure sometimes seems enough to make an authority act. That demonstrates RTI’s power, but also presents a danger. We must not confuse action with accountability. If a road is repaired after an RTI application but the authority does not disclose its budget, contractor, or expenditure, the immediate problem may be solved, but the citizen’s legal right remains unfulfilled. The RTI law was enacted not simply to persuade government offices to act, but to establish a durable culture of openness and accountability.

Another troubling development is that some applicants reportedly faced verbal abuse, threats of legal action, home visits, collection of personal information, political labelling, and pressure to settle matters informally. Officials sometimes tried to substitute telephone conversations or verbal explanations for written responses. In one case, additional activists reportedly filed applications collectively after an individual applicant faced pressure, apparently to prevent him from being singled out. Such experiences strike at the philosophy of the RTI Act. Asking a public authority how it has exercised public power or spent public money is not an act of hostility, but an exercise of citizenship.

Social-protection cases offer another important lesson. Citizens sought lists of recipients of old-age, widow and maternity allowances, VGD rice, TCB cards, agricultural inputs and other benefits. Their questions were elementary: Who is entitled? Who was selected? Who received the benefit? Why was someone excluded? Without such information, citizens cannot know whether scarce public resources are being distributed fairly. Public authorities themselves are bound by the RTI Act to disclose essential information proactively; however, a recent review of some 37 ministries and nine divisions found that a majority of them have failed to publish their latest annual reports on their websites, despite the legal requirement, while some had never published one at all.

The experience, therefore, presents a paradox. On the one hand, RTI has demonstrated considerable grassroots strength. Citizens continued to file applications, appeal, organise collectively, and demand answers. Even without an effective apex enforcement mechanism, a single RTI application could sometimes expose administrative failure and produce corrective action. On the other hand, that resilience risks concealing the seriousness of the institutional vacuum. A statutory right should not depend upon the persistence, courage, or collective strength of the person exercising it. When an authority refuses information, the citizen must have somewhere effective to go. That is precisely why the Information Commission exists.

When that final link in the enforcement chain is weakened, the burden shifts from the institution to the citizen. People must repeatedly pursue officials, appeal, negotiate, mobilise others and sometimes withstand intimidation simply to make a right already guaranteed by law meaningful.

Bangladesh’s experience during this institutional vacuum has therefore reaffirmed the importance of the RTI Act. Citizens have demonstrated that they still believe in their right to know. The state must now demonstrate the same commitment. A right to information cannot remain indefinitely dependent on citizens’ determination to enforce it. The right to know needs its guardian back. How much longer must citizens wait? What can justify a two-year delay in appointing the Commissioners needed to make the law fully enforceable?

It’s worth recalling that Information Adviser Zahed Ur Rahman, while talking to journalists in Rangpur on August 19, said that an “effective and independent” Information Commission would be formed within a month. We hope that the government will honour that pledge and demonstrate its commitment to the RTI Act by appointing the commissioners without further delay. With the International Day for Universal Access to Information approaching later this month, there could hardly be a more appropriate way to mark the occasion, or a more convincing affirmation of citizens’ right to know.

Dr Shamsul Bari and Ruhi Naz are chairman and assistant director (RTI), respectively, at Research Initiatives, Bangladesh (RIB). They can be reached at rib@citech-bd.com.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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