Families of the missing seek answers through Right to Information Act

• Families of war-disappeared filed requests for information about missing loved ones under RTI at Government offices in Batticaloa as soon as the law came into force on Friday

By Dharisha Bastians 

Twelve women filed applications at government offices in Batticaloa last week seeking information about family members who went missing during the war, in a remarkable effort to use the Right to Information (RTI) Act to push for answers about the disappeared. 

Assisted by a community worker in the area, the women attempted to file applications under the RTI Act as it came into effect last Friday (3) at the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, the Prisons Department, the Kachcheri or District Secretariat and the office of the Eastern Province DIG and the office of the Batticaloa DIG, all situated in the eastern town of Batticaloa.  

The RTI Act had offered families a new channel to press the Government for information about missing loved ones, after years of searching and campaigning had proved futile, says Jayatheepa Pathmasri.  

Her husband Ramalingam disappeared without a trace on 23 May 2009, five days after the war ended.  Jayatheepa, 31, who works as a counsellor at Women in Need in Batticaloa, believes the RTI Act could play a central role in truth-seeking and non-recurrence, two key pillars of the Government’s transitional justice process which seeks to deal with lingering issues from a 26-year civil war. 

“We have gone from pillar to post, to army camps and government offices looking for them. We have done temple poojas and marched in rallies. This is a new avenue for us to keep searching for answers,” she explains. 

Under a scorching sun, the women travelled by foot to each Government office and skipped lunch to make sure the applications could be made in all five places within the day.  

Many Government offices the women visited were reportedly unaware of their obligations under the new law. But the women persisted, getting mixed receptions at each office, with some officials flatly refusing to accept their applications. 

“At every office, first we had to hold a class on the Right to Information Act,” quips Amalaraj Amalanayaki, who also tried to submit RTI requests last Friday. The 43-year old woman whose husband Anthony Amalaraj went missing in February 2009, admits she had no “great expectations” about this latest effort to find him. 

“But we recognise the value of the RTI Act which is why we wanted to submit our applications on the very first day,” she explains. 

Even though most public officials were wary of accepting the applications, some Government offices treated the 15 women trekking across town well, Amalanayaki reports about her experiences on Friday. “At one Police office they gave us tea and spoke to us kindly.” 

Others were less patient as government workers struggled to process the applications and understand the new law. 

“One official said to us, you’ve been waiting eight years, why can’t you wait a few days more? This is the same apathy and insensitivity we have encountered in the past too,” she observed. 

Out of the five offices the women visited last Friday, only three agreed to accept the applications. The Eastern Province DIG Office and the Prisons Department declined to accept the requests. Officials at the Department of Prisons advised the women to submit their applications to the Ministry of Prison Reform and Resettlement. 

The experience of families of the missing in Batticaloa underscores major challenges that lie ahead with regard to the implementation of the RTI Act. 

RTI advocates say the biggest challenge will be changing the culture of a closed Government, where state officials see themselves as gatekeepers of information that the Constitution and the new Act now mandate they must share with the public. 

“People requesting information will need stamina and persistence to unlock state-held information,” said Transparency International Sri Lanka Executive Director Asoka Obeysekere.

Vijay Nadaraj of the Law and Society Trust explained that it was important to keep requesting information, even when the answers may not always be forthcoming. 

“The point is not really whether they turn you down, it’s that you can ask, and that by continuing to ask, you bring the state into a relationship of responsibility to you as a citizen,” Nadaraj said. 

The right to information was enshrined as a fundamental right through the 19th Amendment to the constitution in April 2015, and the RTI Act was subsequently enacted in June 2016. Seven months later, citizens can now apply for information at hundreds of public authorities categorised under the RTI Act, the Government said, urging citizens to “make use” of the law. 

But Jayatheepa Pathmasri wishes the Government had taken steps to create awareness among district level officials about the RTI Act before it came into force last week. She says that while right to information laws were intended to empower ordinary people, the women had only felt pushback when they tried to exercise their constitutional right last Friday. 

“At the end of the day we were disillusioned and disappointed,” Amalanayaki agrees, as she speaks about her first experience with the RTI process. “But this is only the beginning. We will keep at it. ”