Hasty and flawed

IN SPITE of pleas to the contrary from the concerned professional bodies, the government has gone ahead and promulgated the Freedom of Information Ordinance, 2002. We have had occasion in these columns to point out that an interim government had better not enact such basic laws through ordinances at a time when an elected government is about to take over. However, the government turned a deaf ear to the criticism in the media and by the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors and the All Pakistan Newspapers Society and went ahead with its enactment. As promulgated on Saturday, the ordinance does not serve to advance the cause it is intended to. As a perusal of the text shows, there are areas of information to which the government has restricted access to the people or denied it altogether.

There are certain matters to which denial of access can be understandable. For instance, information relating to highly sensitive defence and security matters or the privacy of bank accounts cannot be made freely accessible. However, sub-section 8 (f) also denies access to a “requester” any matter the government chooses to declare ‘classified’. This arms bureaucrats with sweeping powers and makes the availability of information to the public dependent on their sweet will. In practical terms, this means that whenever a government functionary decides to hide some irregularity or a transaction made in violation of the relevant rules, he can declare it out of bounds to the public. The same can be said of section 15 of the new ordinance whose sub-section 1 overrides the application of section 7 in respect of matters concerning “international relations.” Specifically, it denies access to matters whose disclosure could “cause grave and significant damage to the interests of Pakistan” in the conduct of foreign policy. Again, it has been left to the government to determine what causes damage to Pakistan’s interests. The same cover has been extended to information whose disclosure may be “harmful to law enforcement.” Like matters relating to foreign policy, here too it is the bureaucrats who will decide which information to hold back because its disclosure could prove harmful. Sub-sections a, b, c, d, and e detail the damage likely to result from a disclosure of information — like the commission of an offence, or harm to the investigation of a case, or revelation of the identity of a confidential source, or damage to any property or security system. One wishes that in case of a reservation about a citizen’s request for information, there was a tribunal which could hear his complaint if he thought that the department concerned was making wrong use of the powers made available to him under sections 15 and 16.

The ordinance does provide for recourse to the Ombudsman. But the law specifies that such recourse can be had only where access is denied under section 7. It does not authorize a citizen to seek the Ombudsman’s intervention in matters denied to him under sections 15 and 16. This is the ordinance’s great flaw and needs to be corrected. As pointed out by us earlier, this law — plus the earlier ones relating to the press — could have waited for the newly-elected parliament to scrutinize. However, by enacting it in a hurry, the government has paid no attention to the criticism from the CPNE, APNS and journalists’ organizations. The expectation now is for the National Assembly to withhold its assent to the ordinance and pass a new law incorporating the views expressed by citizens’ groups and the professional bodies.

The sheer cost of it

MOSCOW’S chief medical officer has said that all but two of the 117 hostages who died as a result of the messy ending of the theatre siege were killed by the gas used by the Russian security forces. Another 400 of the hostages are still in hospital recovering from the after-effects while some 200 have been released after treatment. The exact nature of the deadly gas, inducted into the theatre through its ventilation system, was not known till Monday afternoon, although some reports suggested that it could be similar to a form employed as an anaesthetic. Going by the results it produced, this sounds very much like a euphemism for something far deadlier.

Every hostage crisis confronts a government with a no-win situation: acceding to the demands of the hostage-takers will be seen as a sign of weakness and an act that may encourage further similar episodes, while forcibly ending a siege runs the risk of casualties among the hostages. There have been exceptions to this general rule on both counts. In some cases, governments have actually been successful in both arresting the terrorists involved and securing freedom for their captives. But on the whole a government caught up in a situation like this has a greater dilemma on its hands, particularly if it believes that the hostage-takers are desperate people ready to die for their cause. It may then balance the civilian casualties likely in a commando assault against the political cost it may have to pay through conceding the hostage-takers’ demands. Deciding in favour of the former course needs a great deal of coldbloodedness, and the Russian government has just presented an example of this.

In tackling the 1995 hospital siege, also by Chechens, it had displayed similar ruthlessness of approach. In this case, the use of gas raises a new question. Is it right for a state to use chemical weapons against elements it considers to be terrorists and wrong for a Saddam Hussein to employ such weapons against people whom he considers to be his opponents? This is just one of the questions thrown up by the “war on terror”, which has distorted democratic values and confused moral issues.

ID cards: frustrating delays

DELAYS in the processing of computerized national identity cards by Nadra have gone beyond all limits. According to a recent report, only about 190,000 people out of a total of 370,000 have so far received their computerized cards, many of which contain faulty particulars. The waiting period has now extended beyond a year as opposed to the prescribed eight weeks. This is no small lapse and calls for a thorough investigation of the whole process at an appropriate level. Citizens are having a tough time acquiring an identity card the possession of which is vitally important in connection with a host of things such as travel abroad, admission to colleges and universities, opening a bank account, seeking employment, property transactions and so forth.

Nadra is a huge outfit employing state of the art technology to process applications for computerized identity cards. That its overall performance has been extremely disappointing goes without saying. In a sense, it is a reflection on the efficiency of the interior ministry, whose brainchild it is. First, the ministry issued faulty voters’ lists last year before the local bodies’ elections, which the Election Commission rejected outright, and then made a hash of preparing and delivering ID cards to the citizens. There are apparently thousands of undelivered ID cards that are lying in the backrooms of the post offices across the country for lack of proper delivery arrangements or just because the addresses printed on the cards by Nadra are ridden with errors. A common complaint among those contacted for delivery of cards has been that the information printed on the cards is not accurate, so they cannot accept them. This speaks of a chaotic pattern of working and management which must be rectified soon — before a public outcry develops over Nadra’s slothful ways.