How many steps back?

The world follows the adage of ‘one step forward, two steps back’ whereas we have upped it to ‘one step forwards, 10 steps (20 steps, 30 steps and so on) back’. A ray of hope emerged when the PTI enacted for the first time ever in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the Right To Information Act in November 2013. But all these gains may be lost as the KP government (the PTI by proxy) has caved in to the arrogant mentality of legislatures by amending the RTI act to exclude KP parliamentarians from the ambit of the act. Second, by further subjecting the decisions of the Information Commission to the tedious and Sisyphean judicial process of district and sessions courts, the KP government has ensured that the Information Commission becomes a toothless tiger whose orders will never be implemented. For rather than complying with the Information Commission’s orders, the government can easily challenge it in court and embroil the process in neverending litigation.
Why the KP government agreed to roll back the positive part of the law is a mystery. It also raises the fundamental question: why do the people’s representatives, who have been elected by the people and whose perks and privileges are financed by the people and who sit in a parliament financed also by the people, not feel themselves answerable to those they represent? Why is it that for this beleaguered nation the light at the end of the tunnel always turns out to be the light of an incoming train? Can no one turn that light into the first ray of sunshine?
Dr Raza Gardezi
Karachi