To mobilise 'right to be informed'

Universal Declaration of Human Right (UDHR), 1948 in its Article-19  has declared that “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 to frontiers”

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Courtesy: MJF

TO uphold the constitutional commitment of ensuring people's power, right to information, or in other words, right to be informed or right to know is inviolable. In order to realise right to information, right to know comes first. Right to know enables people to know or to be informed in terms of decision making which impacts the life of those people. Right to know, demands for free access to information. To be armed with knowledge about basic civil rights, freedom of information is undeniable.

International human rights instruments  
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 59(1) stated that freedom of information is a fundamental human right and ... the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) and Article 19(2) of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) declared that 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. In addition, regional human rights treaties also affirmed this right of freedom of information.

Constitutional Pledges and Legislative enactment
The Constitution of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh under Article 39 expressly recognised and guaranteed freedom of thought, conscience, speech and the freedom of press.  The interpretation of this Article is intended to include access to information, denial of which amounts to denial of freedoms guaranteed under the constitution. Again the careful reading of Article 7 and 11 of the Constitution which states for people's power and democracy, fundamental human rights and freedom respectively, implicitly urge for people's right to information.  

In line with this, Right to Information Act 2009 underscored the potentiality of right to information on the following issues:

* to empower people

* to engage themselves meaningfully in the democratic process

* with a view to increasing transparency and accountability in the mechanisms of governance, reducing corruption

* and more generally to achieve the development goals.

How to seek information?
Right to Information Act 2009 enables every citizen access to information from the authority and the authority shall, on demand from a citizen, be bound to provide him with the information. Here it implies that everybody should aware of their right to information and if any kind of information is necessary, he has to make a demand for it by making an application.  

* Under this Act, people have to apply to the concerned Designated Officer (DO) of the concerned Government and Non- Government authority directly requesting for information either in writing or through electronic means or by e-mail.

* All information requests must provide the applicant's name, address and other particulars for a response in prescribed format as mentioned in the Rules.

* Description of the information sought for should be correct and clear as possible.

* One can express a reasonable preference for the mode they wish the information to be supplied, for example, making inspection, having copy, taking note or any other approved mode like e-mail.

* For obtaining information one must pay fees as determined by the DO as prescribed in the Rules.

*    The designated officer shall, on receipt of a request by fulfilling the above mentioned criteria, provide the information to the applicant within 20 (twenty) working days from the date of receiving the request. If more than one unit or authority are involved with the information sought for, such information may be provided within 30 (thirty) working days.

* If the designated officer, due to any reason, fails to provide the information sought for, he shall inform the applicant the reasons thereof in writing within 10 (ten) working days.

*    If any person fails to receive information within the aforesaid time or is aggrieved by a decision of the designated officer, within 30 (thirty) days from the expiry of such period or, as the case may be, from the receipt of such a decision, prefer an appeal to the appellate authority.

*    The appellate authority will settle the appeal within a period of fifteen days either by making direction to the concerned designated office to supply the appellant the requested information or dismiss the appeal if it is not considered fit for acceptance.

Complaint to the Information Commission  
When complaint can be made:

* If any person is unable to submit a request to any Designated Officer either by reason that such an officer has not been appointed by the concerned public authority; or

*    the Designated Officer has refused to accept his or her application;

*    he has been refused access to any information requested by him under the RTI Act;  

*    he has not been given a response to a request for information within the time limit specified in the Act;

*    he has been required to pay an amount of fee which he considers unreasonable;

*    he believes that he has been given incomplete, misleading or false information.

Disposal of complaints:
*    On receipt of a complaint the Chief Information Commissioner, if finds it necessary, may himself inquire into or direct inquiry by any of the Information Commissioners into the contents of the petition.

*    The Commission may decide a complaint after hearing the parties to the complaint or by inspection of documents produced by the complainant.

*    The parties may present their statements before the Commission either personally or through their engaged lawyers at the time of hearing.

*    The complaint will generally be settled within 45 days and it will not exceed 75 days in any cases.

*    If the compliant has been proved against the concerned designated officer the commission can impose fine not exceeding 5000 taka and can take departmental action as well.

*    If the complainant is not satisfied with the decision of the information commission he can file writ petition to the High Court Division of Bangladesh.

Exceptions
However the right to seek information from a public authority is not absolute. Sections 7 of the Right to Information Act enumerates the categories of information which are exempt from disclosure such as information which would prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of Bangladesh, information that may affect relationship with foreign country and many others described under this section and schedule to the Act. These are made to make a balance between the freedom of information and individual privacy as well as state integrity. But here, in defining state interest or integrity due sincerity and good faith must be ensured otherwise the misuse of the exemption particularly by the government can make the whole purpose of law vitiated.  

Practical implications: Freedom of information
The Perception Study- 2013 of Community Legal Service (CLS) suggests that more than 70% people of Bangladesh particularly the poor and marginalised people are unaware of basic human rights and legal issues connected with daily life.  This reveals the poor implementation of right to information Act even after five years of its enactment. In addition, factors like the lengthy and cumbersome process needed to extract information, the traditional mindset of government officials about maintaining secrecy of information, lack of commitment from the designated officer, absence of effective information management system, inadequate numbers of information officers are also hindering the implementation of right to information.

In this regard it is recommended that a countrywide popularisation campaign should be launched to aware people about the existence of the Right to information Act and to disseminate knowledge regarding   prescribed procedure of seeking information. The mental barriers both at the level of information-seekers and disseminators need to be reduced to ensure free flow of information.

The writer works with Law Desk, The Daily Star.