Seeking Information

TRUE to its liberal spirit, the Constitution of Nepal promulgated in 1991 after the restoration of multi-party democracy in 1990 has accorded every Nepali a right to information. The Constitution-framers were not satisfied with rights to freedom of expression alone. They went further ahead and wrote Aticles 16 that reads: Every citizen shall have the right to demand and receive any information on any matter of public importance. Thus was fortified the Constitution in terms of upholding Nepalis’ right to information. Sadly, however, right to information of a Nepali citizen is more often violated than respected in the present scheme of things. Journalists routinely face stonewalling officials who are extremely reluctant to part with any information on governmental doings with the result that the public’s right to know is easily denied. No successive governments thought of this continuous violation of right to information as a serious enough matter to make moves towards drafting a right to information bill. In the meantime, clamour for a right to information act was continuing.

Journalists fortunately did not wait for the government to show alacrity. Federation of Nepalese journalists some months ago began to work on the draft of the right to information that, on completion, has been handed to the government. The latest news is that the government is working on this preliminary draft to table it in the current session. This is indeed good news. All proponents of right to information would rejoice if the current session of parliament is able to give the Nepalese press and the public a right to information Act. This is a long-overdue legislation that the parliament should have legislated long ago. If the present bill is passed into an Act, any individual would be able to demand and receive information from a government, other public or private agencies. If he/she is denied information, there will be ways to fight for it. In case of denial of information from any government or non-government agency, the information -seeker can knock on the doors of appellate courts. Though information on certain matters like national security can be withheld with justification, agencies will not be able to brush aside legitimate queries from the press and the public on filmsy grounds once the Act is enforced. They can do so only at the peril of inviting litigation from the aggrieved party. Therefore, the coming into force of such a Right to Information Act would certainly go into making Nepal’s officialdom more transparent than it is now and thus more accountable. The government should table the bill and the legislators afer extensive and exhaustive debate, pass it without delay.

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