KP steps back on RTI law

ISLAMABAD: While the Punjab is becoming more transparent than before, reforms in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) are being reversed with the first attack on the much-trumpeted Right to Information (RTI) law and it is happening only less than two years after its enactment.
The KP Assembly in a hush-hush manner late Tuesday amended the RTI law to exempt itself from accountability, depriving citizens of their right to question the public representatives and their performance in the assembly headed by the speaker belonging to the PTI, the champion of reforms.
The KP was the first to introduce a robust RTI law and has also taken a lead in defacing it, which is going to haunt the PTI in the years to come.
This disturbing development in KP is in contrast to the Punjab Assembly, open to any public scrutiny under the provincial RTI law that has exempted noexempted no institution from being called into question.
Punjab Assembly is credited being the only legislature in Pakistan that displays attendance of its lawmakers on website in line with the directives of the Punjab Information Commission.
Although bureaucracy has been offering organised resistance to RTI law, Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif has turned down several proposals demanding reduced scope of the RTI law.
Even higher judiciary in Punjab has not been granted exemption from RTI law as any citizen can question the working, let alone the provincial assembly secretariat. Likewise, Punjab’s information commission is powerful enough to enforce its directives with no authority above it. The commission’s verdict can’t be challenged in any court of law.
On the other hand, not only KP Assembly has exempted itself from being questioned through amendment in RTI law, it has also reduced the power of KP’s information commission which has now been made subordinate to a sessions court as the commission’s decision can be challenged in district court.
Unlike Punjab where even the higher courts have not been granted exemption from RTI law, they are beyond the ambit of RTI law in KP.
As far as Punjab Assembly is concerned, two citizens moved the information commission against the assembly secretariat. In one case, the record of departmental promotion committee’s proceeding was being denied to an additional secretary who had been superseded. The assembly secretariat provided the record within no time when directed by the information commission.
In another case, the assembly secretariat had refused sharing the attendance record of lawmakers citing it as secret information. Upon the directives of the information commission, it not only provided the requisite information, attendance record was displayed on its website from then onward.
This is in contrast with the reluctance of other assemblies’. The National Assembly has been requested the same record and it refused every time. Even the directives of the federal ombudsman, the appellant authority at federal level, regarding the provision of the attendance record have not been implemented.
The amendment to KP’s RTI law has drawn criticism from transparency activists. “This is a bad news. PTI government has done no favour to itself, let alone the citizens. A bad precedent has been set that is going to haunt it in days and years to come,” said Zahid Abdullah, RTI coordinator.
Muhammad Anwar, CGPA executive director, said that not only the exemption of KP Assembly from the RTI ambit is condemnable but the way the amendment bill was introduced also violated the acceptable norms of lawmaking. The final version of the bill put for the voting has not been provided to anybody, and last minute addition was made to grant exemption to KP Assembly from RTI law.
Anwar stated that the lawmakers should be questioned on such legislation. The PTI government was formed to fulfill the promises stated in the election manifesto, and eradicating corruption was high on the agenda of PTI government. In this regard, the RTI law was welcomed. However, the amendment will cripple the effectiveness of the law. Peshawar High Court has already been exempted and now with the exemption of legislative branch of the KP government, the law is receded only for the executive branch of government and lower judiciary. Anwar further stated that KP lawmakers wanted to make other institutions accountable but not the one they are representing. If the PTI government really wants open and transparent governance, the decision to exempt KP Assembly, shall be re-considered, he stated.