The Punjab government has been urged by the Civil Society Organization (CSOs) to ensure enforcement of the “Punjab Transparency and Right to information act 2013”.
The participants of the special meeting called for “Assessing the implementation of right to information” held under the aegis of Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) was joined by civil society organizations namely; Association of Women for Awareness and Motivation, Bytes for All, Cecil and Iris Chaudhry Foundation, and National Commission for Justice and Peace.
Peter Jacob, the executive director CSJ while speaking of implementation of Punjab ‘Right To Information’ (RTI) law, emphasized that RTI had become a constitutional right since 2010 through 18th amendment under Article 19-A. The Punjab government passed and set up the Commission which was functioning Punjab Transparency and Right to Information Act 2013 till April 2017. However, the government failed to make necessary appointments of Commissioners to the Punjab Information Commission (PIC) for past four months which was equivalent to interfering with this guaranteed fundamental right of the public of Pakistan.
CSOs resolved that it is responsibility of the Punjab government to appoint Commissioners of the PIC and provide them with sufficient staff and other resources for this institution, since RTI cannot be materialized without independent, meaningful and delivering human rights institutions.
The participants of consultation made the following recommendations to the Punjab government for effective implementation of the law concerning transparency and right to information in the province:
1-We urge Chief Minister of Punjab to appoint Commissioners of Punjab Information Commission according to the criterion mentioned in Section 5 of Punjab RTI law 2013 as soon as possible.
2-All government bodies should ensure the designation of Public Information Officers in respective departments and promotion of proactive disclosure of information to citizens.
3-The government should undertake awareness campaign to make people aware about the RTI law and implementation mechanism.