What is Access to Information ?
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Related |
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| :: | Draft Law on Access to Information of Palestine |
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Draft Law "Access to information "
(Arabic) |
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The Legal Framework for Media in Palestine and Under International Law |
| :: | Access to Information Project and Activities |
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Selected literature |
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Freedom of Information and Access to
Government Records around the World
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Access to information: whose right and
whose information? |
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Access to Information, Chapter 5 – Enhancing Access to Information Programming (2003) |
History is replete with instances of good concepts weakened by vague definitional parameters and the concomitant blurring of focus. This is equally true in the case of the notion of access to information. A good starting point is the observed variations in the title of legislative instruments ? ?Access to Information?, ?Freedom of Information? and ?Right to Information? (to give three common examples). As the Scottish author Kenneth Grahame remarks ?The strongest human instinct is to impart information. The second strongest is to resist it?. A cursory glance at the contemporary chronicles of corruption in the poor and developing countries reveals that only the second part of the above quotation holds good. As history has repeatedly underscored, secrecy breeds corruption and the violation of human rights. Control of information in the hands of a powerful few has led to the marginalization of millions of people, who have been bypassed by development. Given this disquieting fact, it is quite imperative that we talk about a ?right? wherein ordinary citizens can get information as an entitlement and not as a favour. Watering down what is now universally regarded as a fundamental right (the concept is clearly articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) to passive concepts like ?access? or ?freedom? will blur the focus and dilute the effectiveness of any concerted effort to open up records. So let?s get the semantics correct ? we are talking about a non-negotiable right of citizens to demand information from the state and other relevant entities to enhance the quality of governance and strengthen the vibrancy of democracy.
This brings us to the next questions
of ?who frames? and the ?what? of the
questions asked. Interestingly, the basic premise of all
existing debates on the issue of access/right to
information hinges on the transactions between the state
and the citizens. How the abusive discretion of a
monopoly state can be controlled and contested by
`voices? of an informed citizenry emerges as the central
question. It is a debilitating fact that most
legislation on access to information covers only state
entities. Critical non-state actors like NGOs,
trans-national corporations, international institutions,
funding agencies and professional bodies more often as
not, fall out side their ambit. This is a glaring
lacuna. As the world gets increasingly enmeshed in
complex interrelationships, global actors are able to
play an active role among local economies and societies
in unprecedented scale and scope. The emerging welter of
polemical themes like bio-piracy, genomes, transgenic
crops, hazardous dumping etc., need to be covered under
the rubric of `right to information? delimiting
effective checks and balances, if functionality should
remain a prime concern.
*Source :CorisWeb