Do Not Compromise On Your Right To Know: RTI Commissioner Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena 

SEPTEMBER 28, 2018

Sri Lanka’s experiences with Right to Information took centre stage in Kuala Lumpur with the island nation’s progress with the RTI Act being discussed as a model for Malaysia during the days leading up to International RTI Day (28th September 2018). 

Following a historic general election of Malaysia in May 2018 that changed the political landscape of the country, the new Government had promised a freer society, the cessation of use of sedition and criminal defamation laws to suppress opposition politicians and activists and the guaranteeing of the right to information.     

Marking these developments in a press release from Jakarta this week, UNESCO announced its hosting, for the first time in Malaysia, the IPDC Talks (International Programme for the Development of Communications) in collaboration with the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) and the Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) with six experts, including three international and three Malaysians, providing their perspectives on global and local point of views from national institutions and academia. 

The speakers included H.E. Steven Sim Chee Keong, Deputy Minister for Youth and Sports, Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena, Commissioner of Sri Lanka’s Right to Information Commission, Dr. Azmi Sharom, Faculty of Law, University of Malaya, Amos Toh, Legal Advisor to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression and Barbora Bukovska, Senior Director for Law and Policy, Article19.org. 

Dr. Ming-Kuok Lim, the Advisor for Communication and Information for UNESCO Office in Jakarta and the Deputy Secretary-General of the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia, Mr. Tan Chuan Ou opened the IPDC Talks in the morning.

The IPDC Talks is an initiative of UNESCO International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) which is the only multilateral forum in the UN system designed to mobilize the international community to discuss and promote media development as well as serving as a laboratory of ideas on communication issues. 

The Colombo Telegraph reproduces excerpts of the address by Sri Lanka’s RTI Commissioner Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena (courtesy UNESCO, Jakarta office):                                  

Many governments around the world jib nervously at the thought of introducing Right to Information laws due to fears that these laws may only work against them. 

That fear is right, to a certain extent. But away from sensational media headlines focusing on information targeting the political line of command and attention grabbing conferences, enacting a good RTI law often works to the advantage of a Government. This is a fact that is often underestimated. A quiet and sometimes unnoticed transformation takes place as step by gradual step, ordinary citizens start probing and prodding a leviathan bureaucracy that in Asia, has been able to survive changes of political regimes without actually reforming itself in any manner whatsoever    

Citizens who are otherwise helpless facing this leviathan gradually realize that an information law may actually help them, perhaps for the first time in a historic background where laws are often worked against them. In fact, as we see in Sri Lanka, public officers themselves have used the law to expose injustice and even corruption. Speaking from the standpoint of Sri Lanka’s Information Commission, we see this acknowledgement of the good done by the country’s RTI Act regularly, from people who appear before us. 

That said, it must also be emphasized that two main principles informed the drafting committee which formulated the RTI Bill that was enacted into law in the month of August 2016. 

First was the principle of equity applied to state and non-state bodies in securing transparency. So the Act includes not only state entities and constitutional entities downwards from the office of the President but also corporates that function with government backing, private entities contracting with the government and non-governmental organisations substantially funded by government, foreign governments or international organisations to the extent of their ‘rendering a service to the public’. 

The Act also covers security and intelligence bodies unlike other regional RTI laws. There was a stern and uncompromising refusal to sacrifice best practice norms for expediency. So for example, in the face of considerable pressure that Sri Lanka’s law should have national security agencies or the department of the chief prosecutor exempted from its reach, our insistence was that no agency can be deemed to be above the law. 

This was a remarkable development. For decades, Sri Lanka’s civil and ethnic conflict had resulted in information being officially denied by the law. Non-disclosure of information was the norm while disclosure was the exemption. Departing from this thinking, the basic principle was that, where exceptions apply, these must be by subject matter not by the privileging of certain institutions. All of these are subjected to the public interest override. 

The second principle was that the conviction that RTI should not be seen as the enemy of the public service. The Act protects the information officer (as well as other officers) from any consequences of carrying out his duties under the Act (Sections 30 and 40)        and also makes it an offence if any other officer refuses without reasonable cause to render assistance to the information officer when that assistance is sought. 

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