The RTI Act provided for a mechanism called Information Commission of Pakistan, an independent statutory body, to decide on citizens’ complaints against public bodies not providing the requested information when asked. The commission must be commended for, despite several handicaps, professionally adjudicating upon public complaints and directing public bodies to provide citizens the information they had asked for.
Lately, however, powerful public bodies seem to be undermining the Information Commission itself and defeating the very purpose of the landmark legislation passed by the parliament.
The first salvo has been fired by the parliament itself. A citizen asked the Senate secretariat questions about contract employees like numbers, dates of appointment, whether the posts were advertised, salaries and perks. The Senate secretariat declined, forcing the petitioner to seek recourse to the Information Commission which, after due process, asked the Senate to give the information.
Instead of providing the information, the Senate decided to amend the law. An amendment moved by five senators last week seeks to exempt the Senate from the law so that it will not have to answer public queries about all of its administrative, personnel and financial decisions. The amendment bill has since been referred to a committee. Even if the Parliament, in its collective wisdom, rejected the proposed amendments, the intent of Senate secretariat to keep its affairs under wraps has become clear.
The President House and the Election of Pakistan have also claimed exemption from providing any information to the public
Some other powerful public bodies also have refused to implement orders of the Information Commission.
A citizen recently asked the Ministry of Interior for CCTV camera footage bearing on the kidnapping by senior journalist Matiullah Jan on July 21 in Islamabad. When the ministry did not respond, the petitioner appealed to the Information Commission. The ministry refused to entertain queries of the Information Commission, despite reminders and even declined to send its representative to the hearing fixed by the commission early this month.
In a written order on October 13, the Commission asked the Interior Ministry to provide camera footage to the appellant “with intimation to this office, at the earliest, but in any case, not later than 10 working days.” But the order has been ignored without assigning any reason.
Last month, the Ministry of Defence was asked to provide details of post-retirement benefits and perks to all general officers of the three defence forces along with copies of rules and regulations authorizing the same. The petitioner moved the Commission when the Defence Ministry did not respond to the request.
When the Information Commission took it up with the Defence Ministry, it responded that post-retirement benefits to general officers was a matter of national security and will not be provided to the public. The RTI law provides that such information should actually be placed on the website of the public body but the Defence Ministry chose to ignore this.
The ministry failed to realize that by refusing to give this information, it has unwittingly admitted that retirement benefits of general officers - like allotting scores of acres of lands - are doled out whimsically, in an ad hoc and arbitrary manner, secretly and without written rules and regulations. How this information is a matter of national security is difficult to comprehend but power is corrupting and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The President House and the Election of Pakistan have also claimed exemption from providing any information to the public. Refusing transparency, both high offices of the state have moved the Islamabad High Court against the orders of Information Commission.
The courts, which demand and impose transparency on others, also seem to be unhappy with the Information Commission. Section 2 (ix) (e) of the RTI Act defines “public body” also as “any court, tribunal, commission or board under the federal law.” However, the Supreme Court recently declined to entertain queries by the Information Commission when the latter took up the questions about post retirement perks of honorable judges asked by the Women Action forum (WAF) last month.
In reply to the Commission’s query, the Registrar’s office merely forwarded it a copy of its earlier letter of September 20, 2014 addressed to the Ministry of Law and Justice in response to a parliamentary question which stated that the Constitution does not envisage oversight of the courts. It is not a judicial order of the court and it predates the 2017 RTI legislation.
If not challenged before the court the Registrar’s letter would deal a severe blow to the RTI law itself. It is to be hoped that the Information Commission, with the help of bar associations and civil society, mount effective challenge to it. Judiciary is independent no doubt. But it is independent of the executive. It is not independent of the law and the constitution.
The parliament, the civil society and the Information Commission must respond to the looming threats to the RTI law and thus to the principles of transparency and accountability by seeking a public and parliamentary debate of the applicability of RTI Act 2017 to all state institutions.
The writer is a former senator