Revealing govt payments to lawyers not in public interest: Ministry

ISLAMABAD: A journalist in March this year unmasked the double standards of the government on transparency, explaining how the information request was denied even by the ministry headed by Senator Pervaiz Rashid only to hear back from him a word of apology.
His resolve of streamlining the process to avoid such blockade in future accompanied the apology. Pervaiz Rashid who is holding the dual charge of the information and law divisions also assured to appoint a focal person for processing information requests filed under the Freedom of Information Ordinance 2002. The conversation dropped at a note that the minister would be informed in the event of any delay from the departments under his administration.
His assurance was sufficient to satisfy the journalist who filed yet another request in April this year hoping that the minister’s word will make a difference.
The new information request asked for the names of the lawyers hired as legal advisers along with their fee in the last 15 years; the lawyers engaged by the Federation for cases in the apex courts and for the litigation abroad.
Eight months on, Law Secretary Justice (retd) Raza Khan is adamant and not providing the requested details taking refuge behind the Section 8 of the Freedom of Information Ordinance 2002 dealing with the classified documents and the record that is not in public interest.
The only information he shared were the names of legal advisers of different departments and again stopped short of providing information about the remunerations paid to them. As far as the questions relating to the names of lawyers engaged for the litigation in Pakistani courts and abroad, the ministry has claimed “exemption in terms of Section 8.”
The journalist sought minister’s intervention who spoke to the secretary who said the information requested is too much to retrieve from the record as it will take a lot of time.An alternative was suggested of shortening the time-period in order to facilitate the staff in collecting the information and it was also done but the law secretary again refused.
As the minister was asked that if the law secretary would fabricate the same excuses in case a question from a lawmaker is submitted demanding the same amount of information, he didn’t have an answer.
Incidentally, a Right to Information activist, Zahid Abdullah had filed a similar kind of request in 2008 seeking details of the lawyers engaged from October 2002 to March 2008 along with their fee, and the information was denied.
Then a PML-N MNA Begum Nuzhat Sadiq submitted the same question in the National Assembly Secretariat demanding answer from the Law Ministry and it was quick to provide the information to the public representative earlier denied to public on the grounds that it was not in public interest but published in the newspapers without creating any law and order situation.
The details then presented to the National Assembly disclosed that Musharraf hired 23 lawyers who were paid Rs30 million to defend the presidential reference against the then Chief Justice of Pakistan.Insiders of the Law Ministry reveal that fee of lawyers inflated many times during the PPP regime as they used to collect Rs3.5 million and above in single case alone.
The fee of lawyers engaged for defending corruptions cases of PPP leadership in Swiss courts was even higher. How much they had been pocketing is anybody’s guess as long as disclosure in this respect is deemed against the “public interest” by the law secretary. Not only the information about lawyers’ fee is against the “public interest”, the ministry earlier denied details of advertisement released to different media houses on the same grounds.