Freedom of Information Ord’s sections challenged
By Nasir Iqbal
ISLAMABAD: A senior legal expert of the PML-N has approached the Supreme Court with a request to declare unconstitutional and against fundamental rights certain sections of the Freedom of Information Ordinance which “arbitrarily and unreasonably” limit the scope of accessibility to public record.
In the petition, Barrister Zafarullah Khan pleaded that the restrictive aspects of Sections 7 and 8 of the Freedom of Information Ordinance 2002, the Information Act 2005 (Balochistan Act No VI of 2005) and the Sindh Freedom of Information Act of 2006 were in contravention of fundamental rights like Articles 9 (security of person), 10 (safeguard as to arrest and detention), 14 (inviolability of dignity of a man) and 19 (freedom of speech) of the Constitution.
The federal government through law ministry and the four provinces are respondents in the petition.
The petitioner said he was endeavouring to promote the concept of “right to know” — a widely-recognised fundamental human rights and a pre-requisite for accountable, responsive and transparent and democratic governance.
“The freedom of information or right to know always works as a check and balance on the organs of the government and in a democratic set-up there has to be an active and intelligent participation of people in all spheres and affairs of their community as well as the state,” the petition said, adding that instead of helping in accessing the information, these ordinances often blocked the access, thus frustrating the very purpose of law.
The petition pleaded that independent information commissions similar to many other countries should be established to deal with complaints or at the least the ordinance should have provided for recourse to a court of law.
The petition said: “Different organisations have also objected to the weaknesses and restrictive nature of this information regime, but the government has not yet remedied the problems highlighted at various forums.
“Frequent denial of people’s rights to information under his ordinance adversely affects the fundamental rights of the public at large and, therefore, against the fundamental rights as enshrined in the Constitution.
“Section 7 of the ordinance that asks about declaration of public records, allows very limited public access to official records contrary to the spirit of Article 19 of the Constitution.”
The petition said that not only the categories of information or records listed in the Section 7 were limited, its scope became further restricted when it was subjected to Section 8 of the ordinance that dealt with the exclusion of certain records like minutes of a meeting, any intermediary opinion or recommendation, record of banking companies or financial institutions relating to the accounts of their customers, record relating to defence forces or record of some private documents furnished to a public body were limited.
“This section clearly is undemocratic, unfair, highly restrictive and unjustified, arbitrary and in violation of fundamental, human and democratic rights of the people of Pakistan. Similarly, sections 14-18 of the ordinance provide for exemptions from disclosure if a public body feels that the disclosure may be harmful for international relations, law enforcement, privacy of an individual, and economic and commercial interests of the government,” it said.
Source: Dawn
Date:5/2/2010
” 
” 
” 
” 
” 
