Right to information in Bangladesh

The right to information became a fundamental human right with passing of a law known as the "Freedom of Information Act" by the US Congress in 1966. At present more than 50 developed countries in the world have freedom of information laws. Britain was first promised in 1974 by the then Labour government for enacting a freedom of information law, but it took more than a quarter of a century to reach the statute book and a further four years to come fully into force in 2005.

Most of the central government departments in Britain are now well geared up, with a mass of easily accessible information already on their websites. Under the freedom of information act, anyone, of any nationality, living anywhere in the world, will be able to request for information held by more than one hundred thousand public authorities and other designated non-governmental organisations in Britain, and expect an answer within 20 working days, usually free of charge.

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There are, of course, exemptions. Anything relating to national security, most personal data, court records, information subject to parliamentary or legal privilege, or information likely to prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs, is subject to an "absolute" exemption which cannot be overridden. The Independent Information Commission set up by the act, has made it clears that aggrieved members of the public can seek enforcement of their "right to know" only through it.

The civil right groups are nevertheless worried at the right of ministerial veto included in the act, which could be used to block any information deemed too politically embarrassing or sensitive to any government. It may be mentioned here that in New Zealand, on whose freedom of information legislation Britain's act is closely modeled, the ministerial veto has not been used once in the last 17 years since the present system was brought into force. After January 1, 2005, it has become a criminal offence in Britain to destroy data for which a valid request has been made under the act. Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister has described the Freedom of Information Act as one of the lasting achievements of his government.

In Bangladesh, where democratic governments have been in power since 1991, there are some laws in force that are antithetic to the right of access to information. The Official Secrets Act (1923), the Evidence Act (1872), Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure (1960), and the Rules of Business (1996), are such restricting laws that are being imposed by the governments to curtail people's rights of access to information. Article 19 of the Government Servants Conduct Rules, 1979 says: "A government servant shall not, unless generally or specially empowered by the government in this behalf, disclose directly or indirectly to government servants belonging to other Ministries, Divisions or Departments, or to non-official persons or to the Press, the contents of any official document or communicate any information which has come into his possession in the course of his official duties, or has been prepared or collected by him in the course of those duties, whether from official sources or otherwise."

Despite an abundance of advocacy and citizen groups in Bangladesh, the lack of right to access to information has consigned the country and its people to an abject obscurity about the government functionaries. The proposed Right to Information Act, drafted by the Bangladesh Law Commission in 2002, is now lying with the Ministry of Information for scrutiny. The main feature of the proposed act is that government functionaries are compelled to supply information to the people enjoying this statutory right. But the loophole remains that the act has been made applicable subject to certain provisions of the Official Secrets Act.

The most important lesson we can learn from India while passing a right to information act. Indian parliament passed the Freedom of Information Act in 2002 which came into force in January 2003. But the civil society in India rejected the act terming it "paper tiger" for its weak provisions and not providing the scope of appeal by the aggrieved person who is denied access to information. The members of the civil society, under the banner of "National Campaign for People's Right to Information" is now struggling hard in demand of a strong act to be known as the "Right to Information Act" instead of the existing "Freedom of Information Act."

A dialogue titled "Role of Lawmakers in Ensuring Right to Information for All" was organized jointly by All-Party Parliamentary Group on Bangladesh Development Forum, WTO, and Manusher Janno (an NGO), in October. Both ruling and opposition lawmakers, legal experts and civil society leaders attending the dialogue agreed to ensure free flow of information by repealing the laws that hinder people's right to information. Saying corruption resulted from concealing information, they demanded that the annual reports of all the ministries should be made public.

On the other hand, the ministers and some of the ruling BNP lawmakers launched an abhorrent attack on the country's media in parliament on November 22, accusing it of tarnishing the government's image by publishing what they called "fake news" and also demanded for enactment of tough laws to punish journalists. The President, Prime Minister and Information Minister also expressed their intention to amend the provisions of the Press Council Act regarding the power to warn, admonish, and censure to press.

The right to information is a cardinal phenomenon to good governance and the whole mechanism of governance in the country has been vitiated owing to lack of it. The Public Expenditure Review Commission (RERC) headed by M. Hafizuddin Khan detected hundreds of irregularities in public expenditure and waste of funds. The PERC also categorically reported that the parliamentary standing committees failed to ensure accountability and transparency in public expenditure and to remove corruption from the state organs. Absence of accountability and transparency coupled with ever increasing corruption in most of the government departments is no doubt the consequence of lack of right to information.

Access to information is a vital factor for achieving the goals of good governance, which promote transparency and public accountability in the working of government functionaries. Information is a public resource in the hand of the government and the government is to share it with the citizens to the best advantage of the society. We sincerely hope that our parliament will ponder over the issue of right to information and enact full-fledged laws to ensure people's right to information which will eventually lead to good governance and give the democracy a real spirit. The media and the conscious people of the country should also come forward to meet their moral obligation for people's right to information.

ANM Nurul Haque is a columnist of The Daily Star.