Concerns over Right to Info Bill

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01-10-08

THE Coalition of the Right to Information has raised concerns over certain aspects of the Right to Information Bill which it says need to be addressed to make it meet best practices and become more effective.
Their concerns include what they described as the time limit within which information was to be provided, the failure of the bill to see the chieftaincy institution as a public institution, the omission of private bodies in the main body of the bill and the exemption provisions.
“Our general comment on the current bill is that it involves a fair attempt to meet international human rights norms and best practice, except for a number of significant shortcomings that, in our view, require further amendment,” a member of the coalition, Mr Akoto Ampaw, said when he presented a paper on, “The Coalition’s Concerns on the Bill”, at the Right to Know Day in Accra on Monday.
He said the time limit in the bill within which information should be disclosed was unduly long and that “timely disclosure of information is fundamental to the efficacy of any right to information legislation”.
“For example, the bill provides for 21 days for a decision to be taken whether or not to provide information. Then there is a further 14 days after this within which the information is to be given. Then again there is provision for a further extension by a further 21 days where the application is for a large quantity of information or requires a search through a large number of documents and compliance with the original time limit of 21 days will interfere with the operations of the agency,” he explained.
Mr Ampaw stated that to give an information officer 21 days to make such a decision could not be justified under any circumstance, adding, “We are proposing that the time limit to take a decision on whether or not to grant information applied for should be reduced to 10 days and that a further 14 days be required within which to provide access to the information.”
In addition, he said where there was the need for further extension of the time limit required for providing the information, it should be by a further 14 days, not 21 days.
On the chieftaincy institution, he said there was no doubt that the institution wielded considerable political authority and undertook functions that impinged on the public interest, for which reason it ought to be accountable in the exercise of its public functions.
He said, for instance, that stools collected royalties and other moneys for public purposes.
“What is more, the institution is increasingly clamouring for greater public authority. Consequently, it is only fair and proper that it be covered by a right to information bill as a public organ to reflect the realities in Ghana,” he said.
Mr Ampaw said the role of private bodies in various facets of the country’s social and economic life demanded that they be covered by provisions of the substantive legislation, and not the mere possibility of coverage under subsidiary legislation.
He said although the coalition recognised that the provisions affecting private bodies could not be the same as those relating to public agencies, there was “a wealth of experience world-wide regarding provisions relating to private bodies that Ghana could well adopt in the bill to meet our specifications”.
He said although the bill generally recognised the principle of maximum disclosure and the obligation of the government to disclose information, those principles continued to be hampered and undermined by the manner in which the exemption provisions were formulated.
Mr Ampaw said the exemption provisions were, in the coalition’s assessment, not uniformly subject to what he termed “the test of decisive harm and public interest”.
“Some provisions meet the test of the harm; others have a test of the harm, but the wording of the test is loosely formulated, allowing for widespread discretion on the part of the giver of information. Others still do not have the test at all,” he stated, adding that, for example, all information for submission or submitted at the Office of the President or the Vice-President was exempt under the bill.
He said a certificate under the hand of the Secretary to the President or the Vice-President that information was exempt was conclusive proof unless the question of disclosure of the information arose in proceedings before a court, and that it was only in such a case that where there was the claim that disclosure would be prejudicial to the security of the state or the public interest, the Supreme Court, by virtue of Article 34 of the Constitution, had the exclusive jurisdiction to determine whether or not the information ought to be disclosed.
Mr Ampaw said similar provisions regarding information for submission to Cabinet or submitted to Cabinet was exempt, saying that again by Section 7(3) of the bill, information created by or in the custody of the Armed Forces or the security and intelligence agencies which related to the security of the state was exempt.
“These blanket exemptions cannot be justified as reasonably necessary to protect the security of the state or the public interest, for the simple reason that they are not subject to any harm or public interest. The fact that a piece of information is before the Office of the President or created by the security agencies does not mean ipso facto that disclosure of such information is exempted,” he said.
He said it was the position of the coalition that the blanket exemptions should be re-drafted to include a sufficient test of harm in line with international best practice and consistent with the principle of sovereignty of the people.
He said making the Attorney-General the responsible agency to implement the law was “likely to have the practical effect of throttling the bill at birth” and called for the establishment of an independent information commission to implement the Right to Information Law
The Chairperson of the Parliamentary Legal and Constitutional Committee, Mr Yaw Baah, said freedom of information was the "touchstone of democracy" and a fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution.
"People have the right to know what people in public offices do," he stated.
The Executive Secretary of the Ghana Integrity Initiative, Mr Vitus Azeem, explained that a Freedom of Information Law would put legal power in the hands of citizens seeking to ensure accountability of their elected representatives. Ordinary people would be able to take their demand for information to court if necessary, he added.
"We want transparency because it is an effective tool in the fight against corruption," he stated, explaining that without transparency, the Whistleblower’s Act of 2006 would be useless.
The Co-ordinator of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), Nana Oye Lithur, said in spite of the long and drawn out process of drafts and revisions which the bill had undergone, the current version would not provide an acceptable level of access to information.