ISLAMABAD: The Senate Select Committee on ‘The Right to Information Bill 2016’ on Tuesday decided not to include a clause for whistleblowers in the bill, which was passed by the committee on Feb 14.

The chairman of the committee, Senator Farhatullah Babar, wanted to include a clause for whistleblowers but after input from other members of the committee and State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb, it was decided that the protection of whistleblowers will not be included in the bill.

According to the bill passed by the same committee last month, government documents will automatically be declassified after 25 years. Letters titled ‘Secret’ will also be made public and information regarding missing persons will have to be given within three days. People will also be able to request CCTV footage of public places.

The bill also calls for the establishment of an Information Commission, consisting of three members - a retired judge, a retired bureaucrat and a representative of the civil society. The prime minister will nominate the members but cannot remove them and members will have the tenure of four years.

It is wrong to put burden of proof on person against whom allegations of destroying information are made, says minister

The Johannesburg Principle will be applied for information regarding the armed forces, according to which information related to national security can be restricted but not if issues of corruption and human rights are involved.

A meeting of the committee was convened on Tuesday after Mr Babar realised that the word “whistleblower” was not included in the final draft of the bill and distributed a draft which did include it.

He asked if a passed bill can be discussed and was told that it can be as it was not tabled in the house.

“A whistleblower should be protected because only the people working in the concerned department can say if certain information is being destroyed after someone requests it. We have examples of information being deliberately destroyed,” he argued.

He said the Information Committee will be authorised to punish a person involved in the deliberate destruction of information though the bill should also include punishments for whistleblowers who make baseless allegations.

Ms Aurangzeb said a clause for whistleblowers should not be included in the bill because it will be wrong for an officer responsible for the protection of information to have to prove that the allegations made against him by another official of the department are wrong.

Senator Rubina Khalid said she believed that this will lead to people starting litigation against one another in case of any incident.

“I think we have a history of creating trouble for one another which is why whistleblowers should not be included in the bill,” she said.

An official from the Law Division also said there was no need for whistleblowers to be included in the bill as there was already a law under which action can be taken against those who deliberately destroy information.

Former information minister Pervaiz Rashid said the inclusion of whistleblowers in the bill will not lead to its objective being achieved.

“The bill is about obtaining information and should be limited to that. The information commission will deal with destroyed information,” he said.

Mr Babar said Ms Aurangzeb had cast a spell on all the members, which was why they were against the inclusion of whistleblowers in the bill, which will be submitted in parliament for voting.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2017