SLPI writes to President on enactment of Right To Information Act
Tuesday, 25 November 2014 01:07
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The Sri Lanka Press Institute has submitted a letter to President Mahinda Rajapaksa on 21 November, raising the concern of freedom of information and the need to enact the Right To Information (RTI) in Sri Lanka. This comes about in the background of the 18th SAARC summit, which is to be held in Nepal this month.
Following is the full text of the letter:
Urgent need for the enactment of a Right To Information Act for Sri Lanka
In the background of the 18th Summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) being held in Nepal this month, the Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI) draws the attention of the Government of Sri Lanka to the urgent need to enact a Right to Information (RTI) in line with similar statutes prevent in India and other SAARC countries.
In this regard, it is a matter for concern that Sri Lankan citizens remain deprived of robust rights to official information enjoyed by the peoples of neighbouring lands. Agitation for the enactment of such a law has been ongoing in Sri Lanka since 1995, with RTI drafts being proposed variously by the Law Commission of Sri Lanka, the Editors Guild of Sri Lanka and with a draft being approved by the then Cabinet in 2004.
This process of law reform has taken place on the basis that an RTI law is part of accepted democratic governance and is an essential component of the public right to know. Its enactment (subject to accepted exceptions relating to national security) is necessary to maintain public scrutiny of government action and as a deterrent to corruption.
The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka has implied a right to information into existing constitutional provisions. However, considering the limited nature of these judicial initiatives, a separate enactment with properly defined rights and access procedures continues to be imperative.
This need was pointed out most recently in the 2011 report of this Government’s own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, which observed that ‘freedom of expression and right to information, which are universally regarded as basic human rights, play a pivotal role in any reconciliation process’. An RTI law is a basic condition of a functional media which the SLPI wishes to stress.
As rightly pointed out by the LLRC, media freedom should be ‘enhanced in keeping with democratic principles and relevant fundamental rights obligations, since any restrictions placed on media freedom would only contribute to an environment of distrist and fear within and among ethnic groups’.
This Government itself has repeatedly assured that it intends to enact a RTI law. The SLPI urges that these assurances are honoured for the greater good of the Sri Lankan people.
In view of the public importance of this subject, we are also releasing a copy of this letter to the press.
