TISL calls for six changes to RTI bill

Tuesday, 12 April 2016 01:19 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Chamodi Gunawardana

Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) has called for improvements in six key areas of the Right To Information (RTI) Bill, which was tabled in Parliament recently.

In a post published on their website TISL recommends removing the explicit reference to the Attorney General’s Department as the ambit of the section adequately covers lawyer-client privilege from section 5(1) (f). They also recommended the RTI Commission and public authorities under RTI to publish information on their official web sites in addition to their physical premises, which is detailed in (section 8 (4), 26 (1) and 38). The third point was for RTI reports to be submitted to the RTI Commission on 31 March annually (section 10).

Furthermore the TISL recommended strengthening the whistle-blower provision to protect individuals making good faith disclosures that do not correspond to specific RTI requests (section 41). In the fifth recommendation the good governance watchdog called to introduce penalties for information officers that deny information requests in bad faith and the sixth called for removing of references to ‘public service’ and retaining of references to ‘public function’ under section 45.

According to the TISL, five petitions had been lodged at the Supreme Court against the RTI Bill and the Court has considered the legal arguments made by TISL along with several civil society organisations which stressed the RTI bill was totally constitutional.

TISL said the Supreme Court will inform its decision to Speaker Karu Jayasuriya within next week.

Accordingly, if the RTI act is implemented all state owned institutions are answerable to the public and responsible to provide required information within 14 days. They can extend the given period up to 21 days, but if unable to provide information within the period the public can take legal action against them.

However people should submit an information application before requesting information from Government institutions.