Written by Emma Xuereb
What is access to information?
This is the right to create or make use of information and the ability to share and express it in whatever form desired. Access to information is what allows one to educate oneself as well as the people around them. This powerful tool is what makes an individual capable of addressing the challenges that they face. Essentially, having this luxury is what brings development. It brings progress. Most importantly, it is a source that interconnects each and every person through common opinions and interests resulting in the formation of friendships, societies, organisations, and communities.
Thankfully, as countries are becoming more developed, access to information is becoming less of a luxury and more of a right.
What are ‘Right to Information’ (RTI) laws and why are they so important?
Every citizen has freedom of speech and expression and ultimately, one can neither speak nor express without information. RTI laws are what make it a legal right to request information. They lead to more open, accountable, and inclusive governments and enable fair access to information. The ideal and most effective legislation obliges governments to provide regular and reliable documents as a standard procedure, without citizens actually having to request the data themselves. Instead of releasing information as a last resort, governments must justify when they withhold information. This will facilitate the reception of appropriate and relevant information as well as highlight the significance of a transparent government.
Access to information results in transparency which is a key to holding organisations and governments accountable. Thus, having RTI laws is fundamental in order to fight corruption and shed light on what is presently occurring in the world. The act is a fundamental foundation for the functioning of any democracy.
Globally, approximately 120 countries have adopted RTI laws. In some countries, these laws are implemented amazingly, while in others, the laws either don’t exist or need significant improvements.
Why is just having a law not enough?
Many laws are either poorly implemented or poorly promoted, resulting in even strong laws being ineffective. Many RTI laws may not lead to more informed populations simply since some citizens are not even aware that they have a right to request information or are not informed on how to make requests and appeals when seeking data.
Furthermore, there are countries that have RTI laws yet have bureaucracy. For instance, Nepal and Vietnam ask information seekers to provide their name, address, and even the reason for their request to information. Naturally, being intimidating, this may discourage people from exercising their right to information.
In addition to this, RTI systems can only be effective if citizens can freely use the obtained information. If countries have restrictions on freedom of expression and media, citizens who share information on public platforms face intimidation through both verbal and physical attacks. India and Slovakia are examples of two countries that have had citizens murdered following their information requests.
How do RTI laws empower citizens?
All countries can strive to be better and surpass the obstacles they are faced with. This has been shown by the Maldives voters who encountered a political crisis in 2018. They threw out a president, Abdulla Yameen, who jailed opposition politicians and repressed media freedom.
Sri Lanka, has also been fighting to promote the right to information for years, and fortunately, in 2016 they finally enacted its RTI Act. This allows more awareness and involvement in the decision-making of the country and allows them to exercise active citizenship. The Sri Lankan government, to increase the citizens’ knowledge of their new rights, launched awareness campaigns, and broadcasted a television program that discusses RTI cases and activism. This incredible initiative is what fortified the link between the right to information and empowering citizens to exercise it. The Sri Lankan government not only implemented RTI laws but also ensured that citizens are capable of requesting information, as it should be.
The importance of access to information in the time of COVID-19
The Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) stated that governments are obliged to communicate with their citizens when it comes to important decisions during COVID-19. They must hold press conferences and communicate to the public through the media, not only due to their obligations to the RTI Act, but for the public interest.
In a webinar the CLD hosted, they were asked about Twitter’s, and other similar platforms’, policies to handle misguided COVID-19 related posts. The main issue with tech companies deleting content that is incoherent with that of the authorised public health information is that fake news can be viewed as freedom of expression. Conversely, the idea that official sources cannot be questioned in this area, limits freedom of expression as individuals are not being allowed to disagree with what the government is saying.
During this time, governments are being left with no choice other than to make important and unprecedented decisions as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. These decisions are vital to public health and can impact human rights and the economic success of countries around the world. As a result, the world is seeing a decline in accountability mechanisms as these decisions are being made by governments at exceptional speed. Courts, parliaments, and oversight bodies are closing or restructuring due to the pandemic, thus many mechanisms for accountability that citizens naturally rely on, are shutting down entirely. This drastic change in power implies an impactful societal shift, as criticising authority is something that is now not expected. This resulted in accountability suffering and human rights voices drowning amongst these strict regulations.
The reduction in the public’s right to know about government activity is counterproductive in combating the COVID-19 outbreak. Access to information is vital for the public to know how to distinguish between reliable sources and fake news. During the current crisis, journalists and media organisations’ right to information should be even more valuable now than before. The public has the right to know what policies are being made to combat the spread of the virus and how they can, as citizens, engage and participate in those decisions. As stated by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, “This is a time when, more than ever, governments need to be open and transparent, responsive and accountable to the people they are seeking to protect.”
The impact of ‘Access to Information’ being restricted
In Serbia, a day after their parliamentary elections, an article questioning the credibility of the data on the number of infected and deceased persons as a result of COVID-19 was released. The shocked public concluded that official data was concealed in order for the elections to be held and have a good turnout. The vitality of access to the correct information was illustrated through a graph, comparing the Information System database and official data. This suggested that Serbian citizens have been receiving false information for a month which highlights that clear criteria were being violated.
Freedom House is an NGO that conducts research on democracy. Freedom of speech along with media freedom plays a great role in assessing how democratic a country is and thus, it was inevitable that in the NGO’S latest report they concluded that Serbia, together with Montenegro and Hungary, can no longer be regarded as a democracy. The pandemic simply highlighted the government’s negative approach towards the media, including its attempt to control information flow as well as its malevolence towards independent media outlets.
In addition to this, Serbian citizens were deprived of access to information once again when despite the government holding daily press conferences devoted to the coronavirus crisis, overtime restrictions were introduced in order to limit the number present in the room until finally, the Crisis Team thought it best to ban journalists from the press conferences altogether. Reasons for this extreme action included that some newsrooms had been infected with the virus. Journalists, as a result, were expected to submit questions via email, allowing some to be left unacknowledged.
Whilst pro-government media amplified conspiracy theories, such as the coronavirus being “the fraud of the century”, independent media in Serbia had been trying to establish whether the country was equipped for the arrival of a pandemic. Institutions asked to respond to such questions simply ignored numerous requests and it became the norm for government officials to respond only to questions posed by pro-government media. This withholding of information was further extended by other non-COVID-19-related questions being ignored, the reason being that the state of emergency was their main priority.
‘Access to Information’ and the role of citizens
Information is something that we all should have access to as it puts each and every individual a step forward and ultimately, the world as a whole forward. Furthermore, those who do have access to information should play their part in society and spread more awareness, fight for everyone to have this right, and most importantly always speak the truth and be a transparent citizen. With access to information comes great power, and no one should ever take advantage of this luxury but instead respect it and use it responsibly.
“RTI is about the act of questioning itself. About resetting the historical power imbalance between the elected and the electors, the powerful and the powerless. It’s about legitimizing the questioner.”
Sankhitha Gunaratne