Right to Information – Need of the Hour

Offi­cial cor­rup­tion and lack of account­abil­i­ty in gov­ern­men­tal affairs are the kind of issues that affect every Pak­istani in one way or the oth­er. Pak­istan has been too slow in evolv­ing sys­temic mech­a­nisms for address­ing these issues. One of the long over­due steps in this regard is imple­ment­ing cit­i­zens’ right to infor­ma­tion.

Right to infor­ma­tion is indeed a very cru­cial instru­ment in empow­er­ing cit­i­zen­ry. Only if peo­ple are aware of the ways gov­ern­ment is spend­ing tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey and admin­is­ter­ing pub­lic resources, they would be able to check cor­rup­tion and mis­use of pow­er. One of the hall­marks that dis­tin­guish a demo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem from oth­er sys­tems is the cit­i­zens’ access to nec­es­sary and impor­tant pub­lic infor­ma­tion. The cen­tral prin­ci­ple of account­abil­i­ty of the gov­ern­ment in a demo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem can­not be real­ized until peo­ple have open and free access to infor­ma­tion per­tain­ing to gov­ern­men­tal affairs.

Through rec­og­niz­ing right to infor­ma­tion Pak­istan has moved a step fur­ther in its slow but unyield­ing jour­ney towards the estab­lish­ment of demo­c­ra­t­ic poli­ty. But there is still a long way to go. Almost four years ago right to infor­ma­tion was rec­og­nized in 18th Con­sti­tu­tion­al Amend­ment under Arti­cle 19‑A. Today all the provinces have their respec­tive laws on grant­i­ng right to infor­ma­tion, Pun­jab being the last one to catch up. But like in so many oth­er cas­es, hav­ing good laws itself is not a guar­an­tee of any­thing unless the laws are imple­ment­ed in their let­ter and spir­it. So far most of the peo­ple are even not aware that such a law exists. The aware­ness should incor­po­rate a detailed under­stand­ing of the laws includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to the role of Pub­lic Infor­ma­tion Offi­cer, Infor­ma­tion Com­mis­sion and the work­ing of var­i­ous offi­cial pro­ce­dures estab­lished under the law. Along with gov­ern­ment and civ­il soci­ety, oth­er stake­hold­ers such as mass media, polit­i­cal par­ties and legal fra­ter­ni­ty also have a greater role to play in this regard.