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COMMONWEALTH: How to Beat that Democracy Deficit
By Sanjay Suri
ABUJA, Nigeria, Nov 28 (IPS) - The Commonwealth heads of government meeting,
beginning in the Nigerian capital next week, is committed to promotion of
development and democracy - both in heavy deficit among member countries.
The answer is open government, says a new report ahead of the meeting.
"Entrenching people's right to access information is the most practical
way of achieving this," says the report 'Open Sesame' prepared by the
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI).
The report is asking heads of government to immediately implement
"liberal access to information laws developed by people and governments
working in close cooperation." It is asking the institutions of the
Commonwealth itself to put in place disclosure and information sharing
policies. "Without this, the quest for robust democracy and rapid
development will never be realised," the report says.
"Open government is notoriously absent in the majority of Commonwealth
member states," the report says. "Only 11 out of 54 Commonwealth countries
have access to information laws." Others have guarantees in the Constitution
but few enabling laws to activate them, the report says.
Does this go back to colonial days and British rule? The Commonwealth is
after all a group of countries that were once ruled by the British.
That hangover can be heavy, the report says. "Colonial authorities which
owed no duty to subject populations purposefully used secrecy to signal
their power and distance," the report says. "A culture of secrecy permeated
government, and systems to keep information from the public became
embedded."
The report adds: "Today, except in a handful of countries, governments
enthusiastically retain and indeed embrace these symbols of supremacy as if
there has been no intervening change from colonial to constitutional
governance. Official secrets acts, preventive detention and anti-terrorist
legislation, criminal defamation laws, overly indulgent contempt and
privilege laws, media and privacy regulations and restrictive civil service
rules all remain very much intact."
The report is asking the Commonwealth heads of government meeting Dec.
5-8 (CHOGM 2003) to declare that the right to information is central to
democracy and development.
The CHRI is seeking several specific measures from the Commonwealth:
- It must assist member countries to design and implement effective access
to information regimes.
- It must open up its own ministerial meetings and CHOGMs "which currently
remain so stubbornly inaccessible."
- Declarations are not enough; member countries must be required to report
progress on this front at each CHOGM, held every two years.
The report is asking member countries to introduce liberal access to
information laws by the next CHOGM in 2005. It is asking specifically for
proactive publication of information about, for example the basic activities
of government departments, their rules of operation and procedure,
decision-making criteria, performance indicators, points of public access
and financial information including expenditure.
"Governments do not own information," the report says. "Rather,
information is a public good in much the same way as clean air, electricity
and water. Government is a vast storehouse of information. The information
kept by government holds the memory of the nation and supplies a full
portrait of its activities and performance."
The CHRI report points to fundamental areas in which information becomes
central to democracy and to development.
Take poverty. Many of the populations that are worst off live in India,
Nigeria, Pakistan and Bangladesh, whose populations together amount to 90
percent of the Commonwealth. But development strategies have often failed
because of the closed environment between governments and donors without
involvement of the people, the report says.
"Poor people know what they want but are out of the habit of questioning
aloof governments," the report says. But governments and donors have not
been willing to open up. "Yet the Commonwealth insists that it is committed
to development in partnership with people and civil society."
Access to information is a core feature of participatory democracy. But
Commonwealth citizens are struggling because of lack of information. In
India, for example, the criminal background of candidates is withheld from
people, the report says, despite an order from the Election Commissioner.
The Commonwealth is relying on free markets and equitable economic growth
to quicken development, the report says. "The right to information provides
crucial support to the market-friendly good governance principles of
transparency and accountability. Markets, like governments, do not function
well in secret."
The report adds: "The free flow of information ensures that markets work
for people rather than corporations. It helps level a playing field that is
currently heavily skewed in favour of big business."
Guaranteed right of access to information is essential also for fighting
corruption, the report says. "Corruption undermines democracy. It creates a
culture of impunity destroying the rule of law and creating a class of
overlords who need secrecy to keep their dark deeds hidden in dark places."
It is no coincidence that "countries with access to information laws are
also perceived to be the least corrupt."
Right to information laws are necessary also to "peel back the layers of
bureaucratic red tape and political sleight of hand and get to the 'hard
facts'," the report says. "Armed with information, even the most
marginalised of citizens can take action in their own interests."
But the means of getting that message across to the leaders at the Abuja
CHOGM will be the bureaucracy itself. Like the leaders at Abuja, the
Commonwealth itself is on test for its support to open governance.
(END/2003)
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