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COMMONWEALTH: No Democracy Without Access to Information
By Sanjay Suri
ABUJA, Dec 2 (IPS) - The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting beginning
in the Nigerian capital this week is committed to promoting development and
democracy - both in heavy deficit among member countries. A report issued
ahead of the meeting says that open government will be a key element in this
process.
"Entrenching people's right to access information is the most practical
way of achieving this," says the report, entitled "Open Sesame". The
document was prepared by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), a
non-governmental organisation based in India.
The report asks leaders to implement immediately "liberal access to
information laws developed by people and governments working in close
cooperation." It says Commonwealth institutions must also put in place
disclosure and information-sharing policies.
"Without this, the quest for robust democracy and rapid development will
never be realised."
"Open government is notoriously absent in the majority of Commonwealth
member states," the report notes. "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.
Does this go back to colonial days and British rule? The Commonwealth is
after all a group of countries that were once ruled by Britain. To a large
extent, the answer appears to be "yes".
"Colonial authorities which owed no duty to subject populations purposefully
used secrecy to signal their power and distance," the report observes. "A
culture of secrecy permeated government, and systems to keep information
from the public became embedded."
"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 this year
(CHOGM 2003) to declare that the right to information is central to
democracy and development. And, CHRI will be looking to the Commonwealth to
take specific steps in this regard.
It should assist member countries to design and implement effective
access to information regimes.
It should also open up its own ministerial meetings and CHOGM's "which
currently remain so stubbornly inaccessible".
In addition, member countries must be required to report progress on the
information-sharing front at each CHOGM, held every two years.
CHRI has also signaled that it will not be fobbed off by token efforts on
the part of governments. The initiative is asking for proactive publication
of information about, for example, the basic activities of government
departments, their rules of operation and procedure, performance indicators
and financial information, amongst other things.
"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.
To illustrate the importance of a free flow of information, the CHRI report
points to countries like India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where some
of the worst-off populations live.
Development strategies in these states 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."
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."
The Commonwealth is relying on free markets and equitable economic growth to
quicken development, the report notes. However, "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 document 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."
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 is on test this week for its support of open governance.
(END/2003)
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