First Five years of Right to Information regime in Sri Lanka: In retrospect

Mahinda Gammampila

Former Chairman Right to Information Commission

The Right to Information Commission completed its first five year term on Sept. 30, 2021. This article attempts to summarize some of the key achievements of the Commission during this period, in its contribution towards the realization of the goals and aspirations of the legislators of the Right to Information Act No. of 2016.

A Culture of Transparency and Accountability

By introducing the primary law on RTI, the Parliament of Sri Lanka demonstrated its aspirations to foster a culture of transparency and accountability in public authorities by giving effect to the right of access to information and thereby promoting a society in which the people of Sri Lanka would be able to more fully participate in public life through combating corruption and promoting accountability and good governance. The RTI Commission which has been established under the RTI Act with the power to hear and determine appeals made by citizens on their right to information requests among other matters. The Commission can declare rules and regulations relating to the process; recommend disciplinary action against those who violate these provisions and to take legal action against persons violating the Act.

Guidelines and Performance Monitoring

All government and government related agencies have been identified as Public Authorities for the purposes of the RTI Law. The RTI Commission is basically responsible to provide guidelines to public authorities in the course of implementation of the RTI law, while monitoring their permanence.

RTI Commission, on its part has been instrumental in the formulation and publication of a set of Rules that specifies the procedures to be followed in the implementation of the law, along with the Fee Schedules relating to the services provided by the public authorizes.

On the other hand, the Right to Information Commission, being the oversight body in the implementation of the RTI law, is responsible for monitoring the performance of public authorities and ensuring the due compliance by them of the duties cast on them by the Act. The Act empowers the Commission to inquire into the appeals made by the citizens who are aggrieved by the decisions of the Information Officers and Designated Officers of public authorities. The citizens who are not satisfied with the determinations of the Commission have the right to appeal to the Court of Appeal.

Hearing of Appeals (Adjudication)

The hearing of appeals is the core function of the Commission. Hearing of appeals however faced many challenges due to the lockdowns and travel restrictions imposed to prevent COVID-19 pandemic. The Commission had to resort to documentary proceedings, in the absence of the physical presence of the parties. Where it was extremely necessary to hear views of the parties, the Commission used telephone or online meetings/inquiries through Zoom technology. Commission also attempted to resolve cases through consultation with public authorities in accordance with the policy of maximum disclosure of information.

As the workload of the Commission increased and its functions expanded, the Commission had to face huge administrative issues and challenges in managing its day-to-day affairs with limited human and physical resources. In the absence of competent staff to support the appeal hearing process and drafting of orders, it had to continue its practice of employing newly passed-out law graduates on temporary and assignment basis, till recently.

For the five year period from October 2016 to August 2021, the Commission received around 3,000 appeals from citizens and more than 70% of them were concluded. This is a remarkable achievement for any Administrative Appeal body where all cases are disposed of following due process of law and procedure and the principles of natural justice, particularly granting the appellant (citizen) and the public authority equal opportunity to defend themselves. The above assertion is further confirmed by the fact that a very few appeals have been made to the Court of Appeal against the orders of the Commission.

In the process of adjudication, a citizen-friendly procedure was adapted to the extent possible which is characterized by less formalities enabling the lay appellants to present the case without being pressurized. However, this principle could not be maintained when parties were represented by lawyers resembling court procedures

Public Awareness and Training for Officials

It is often observed that the citizens from all walk of life and all corners of the county who have not been satisfied with the responses of the respective Information Officers and Designated Officers of relevant public authorities have come to the Commission seeking redress. Once a sarong-clad bare bodied member of the Vedda community appeared before the Commission with the traditional axe hanging from his shoulder along with a group of citizens in the adjoining village on an issue of public interest in their area of living. However it may be noted that this example does not suggest that the RTI message has penetrated into all parts of the country equitably. There are many areas yet to be reached.

The Commission has been able to overcome the problems of human and physical resources that it faced due to financial constraints since its inception, to a great extent with the continuous support of the development agencies such as the World Bank, UNDP, USAID/SDGAP and the Embassy of Switzerland. Their technical and financial support was instrumental in obtaining services of competent persons and undertaking outreach programmes. As such, the Commission was able to continue its programmes for the enhancement of public awareness from 2017 to 2021 at District and Divisional levels.

The Commission has made substantial efforts towards increasing public awareness among Civil Society Organisations, Community based Organisations and public officials on right to information. With the support of the Embassy of Switzerland, the Commission held advocacy workshops in Panama (Ampara), Ambagamuwa (Nuwara Eliya), Sooriyawewa (Hambantota), Kilinochchi. Jaffna, Karuwalagaswewa (Puttalam), Mahiyangana (Badulla), Kantale (Triancomalee), Nawalapitiya (Kandy), Nuwara Eliya and Matara

The participation of civil society activists at these workshops was encouraging. At the Mahiyangana workshop, the ‘Varige Nayaka” (chief) of ‘Vedda’ community Uruwarige Wannila Eththo addressed the gathering consisting of civil society representatives as well as the senior government officials, placing several valuable \suggestions for the expansion of the RTI movement. At Nawalapitiya Workshop many representatives from the workers in the plantation sector and the executives of the plantation companies attended

Uruwarige Wannila Eththo, the Chief of the Vedda community took part at the Mahinyangana workshop and a member of that Community attending an appeal inquiry at the Commission in Colombo.

Proactive Disclosure of Information and Record Management Guidelines

Promotion of Proactive Disclosure of Information policy and the provision of Record Management Guidelines to public authorities are two other important tasks entrusted to the Commission by the RTI Act.

A total of 2,280 public officials belonging to 15 state institutes working at the head offices in Colombo and the outstations were given a training on implementation of Proactive Disclosure Policy and Record Management Guidelines in terms of RTI Act. There was a great demand for a comprehensive training from the senior management. The participants themselves found both the record management and proactive disclosure, under the RTI Act were challenging tasks. Of the trained 2,280, a third was from head offices in Colombo and two thirds from all nine provinces participated in these training programs.

In both these areas a survey was carried out by the RTI Commission, with the technical support of the UNDP. Its thematic focus was the involvement of the RTIC with public authorities of the state sector, organized into different types such as ministries, departments, authorities, boards, district secretariats etc. to promote implementation of proactive disclosure policy and the record management guidelines within 15 public institutions. The Commission formulated sixteen (16) broad areas of information that should, at minimum be disclosed pro-actively by public authorities.

RTI Act directs to catalogue and index all records to facilitate the access of information to citizen while directing public authorities to keep all new records for 12 years and records that existed on February 3, 2017 for 10 years. With the assistance of the UNDP, a set of Guidelines for Record Management in public authorities was developed. These Guidelines also facilitate disclosure of information proactively by public authorities. This set of guidelines can be considered a major outcome of the consultancy project.

Research Publications

With the support of the Swiss Government two publications were released in all three languages. These are (i) Reflections on Sri Lankas RTI Act and RTI Regime, a collection of academic analyses on RTI by eminent writers and (ii) Selected Orders of the RTI Commission on decided cases by the Commission which could be used as a reference guide by practitioners of RTI.

Research Collaborations

With the collaboration of the Swiss Government two programs were held with the University of Colombo and the University of Kelaniya for the encouragement of legal and social research on RTI among postgraduate students and academic staff.

Measuring Contribution of RTI Orders to Development in terms of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS)

An independent Research was undertaken on the performance of the RTI functions, under the Swiss project, where appeals received by the RTI Commission were categorised according to UN Sustainable Development Goals. Findings included the impact of Commission interventions among various segments in the socio-economic profile. The SDGs are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to achieve a better and sustainable development by all by the year 2030.

The pies-chart below indicates that a very significant 38% of appeals belong to areas falling under SDG No 16, i.e. just, peaceful, and inclusive society and institutional transparency goal; 15% of appeals belong to areas falling under Goal No 15 i.e. Agriculture and Land and while 13% of appeals belong to areas falling under Goal No 9 i.e. Infrastructure & construction.

Support of Non-Governmental Organization (NGOS), Community Based Organizations (CBOS) and Mass Media.

In the course of the preceding five years, the support provided by various NGOs and CBOs has been of immense use for the fulfillment of the responsibilities of the Commission. The cooperation extended by such organizations and representations made by them include (a) awareness creation among the citizens of the legitimate of right the citizens possess to ask for information (b) providing advice and assistance to individual citizen in making formal information requests or related appeals to the respective authorities, and (c) even appearing at times on behalf of the citizens before public authorities and the commission in support of such representations. In addition, the findings of some of the independent surreys carried out at the field level by several organizations have been very useful.

Similarly, the role-played by media personnel, not only at the national level, but also in the provinces in the promoting of the RTI movement in numerous ways needs to be highlighted.

The cooperation extended to the Commission by media in general, and the media organizations such as the Sri Lanka Press Institute, the Editors Guild and others in particular, has been a source of strength.

International Relations

The Commission throughout the period has been closely following the trends and developments taking place in the global arena of Right to Information, and also working in cooperation with the regional and international organizations for the enhancement of the needs of our county.

In this respect, it is worth noting here that Sri Lanka has been ranked fourth among 123 countries by having earned 131 points (out of 150) in the global right to information rating (RTI Rating) in consideration of Sri Lanka’s legislative framework in relation to transparency and access to information, among other things.

A Framework for Future Strategies

Though there are still delays at the stage of information release, we are confident that the culture of information denial that has long been prevalent in Sri Lanka, is changing positively. We are inspired by the vigour with which the RTI Act has been used, from information release on infrastructure, better health facilities and environment protection to matters of state accountability at the highest levels of the Government.

This shows that the Right to Information is vital to the democratic system and that enforcing the transparency of state and non-state actors directly impact in reducing corruption. Citizen have become part of the governance process and themselves proactively monitor the management of affairs of state. The Commission’s mandate is the realization of principles enshrined in the preamble to the RTI Act i.e ‘to promote a society in which the people of Sri Lanka would be more fully able to participate in public life.’

As an independent Commission acting in the public interest, in which confidence is reposed by both information seekers and the Public Authorities, the Commission has endeavored to carry out that task to the best of its ability. Sri Lanka demonstrates the enormous value of an RTI law working for the benefit of the public when the public itself is given a role to play in that process.

As we advance in the Right to Information process, it is of the highest importance that the information empowerment of the citizenry through the RTI regime, consisting of the constitutional Right to Information (Article 14A), the RTI Act and an independent RTI Commission as guaranteed by law, continue for the sake of democratic values of society.