ISLAMABAD: The Senate select committee on Tuesday passed the Right to Information Bill 2016, which would automatically declassify government documents after 25 years.

The bill would also create an Information Commission, and would include a retired judge, a retired bureaucrat and a civil society representative as its members. The prime minister will be able to nominate members but not remove them, and each member will have tenure of four years.

The bill would make public letters carrying the title ‘secret’, while information on missing persons would have to be released within three days. An individual may even request CCTV footage of public places.

For information on the armed forces, the Johannesburg Principle would be applied, which states that while information related to national security may be restricted, it cannot be so if matters of corruption or human rights are involved.

The committee meeting was chaired by PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar, and all the political parties were represented. After the meeting, State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb said the prime minister had fulfilled his promise, and all kinds of records would be accessible because of the bill.

Ms Aurangzeb said officials of grade 16 and above would be appointed to the information commission through the Federal Public Services Commission.“Pakistan’s relations with other countries will not suffer, as the security and national interest of the country has been protected through legislation,” she said. Senator Babar, while speaking to the media, said the law would make it possible for average citizens to get the utmost information.

“If some information is not provided, people can file an appeal for it. Unfortunately, most information is not provided to people in the name of national security, and any document carrying the title ‘secret’ cannot be shared. Now, however, those documents will be shared,” he said.

“Now the concerned officer will have to give a reason why the information is not being shared. In case of corruption in the armed forces, information cannot be stopped. Information on basic human rights cannot be stopped.”

He added: “If someone is kidnapped by security agencies or they are killed, it cannot be hidden under the cover of national security. Ordinary information has to be released within a month, and information on human rights has to be given within three days.”

Mr Babar said the information commissioner will be retired judge, and a bureaucrat and civil society representative will be nominated as members of the commission.

Civil society members have argued that commission members should not be appointed by the prime minister.

Talking to Dawn, Mr Babar said: “In the past, the chairman of the National Accountability Bureau and the chief election commissioner were appointed by the prime minister and the opposition leader, but that experience did not prove to be good. It has been decided that the prime minister should appoint members from various segments of society, and he will not be able to remove them.”

The head of the think tank Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives, Zahid Abdullah, praised the bill.

“Though I did not agree that members of the commission should be appointed by the prime minister, since the members will be from different segments of society and they cannot be removed by the premier I believe that it is acceptable,” he told Dawn.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2017