Sanctions for information misuse 'should be dropped'

Adianto P. Simamora ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 03/28/2008 11:27 AM

Lawmakers have been urged to drop an article from the freedom of information bill which imposes sanctions on those who misuse information they request.

Violators face up to two years imprisonment and/or Rp 30 million (US$3,260) fines.

"Such a law is likely to have a chilling effect on individuals considering whether or not to request information," Toby Mondel of the World Bank Institute said Thursday in a dialog here.

The freedom of information bill, he said, aims to provide access to information held by public bodies.

"I am not aware of any analogous provisions in any of the approximately 75 national rights to information laws around the world," he added.

The House of Representatives is slated to pass the freedom of information bill on April 1 after eight years of discussions.

Mondel -- who is also law program director of London-based Article 19, a founding member of the Global Transparency Initiative (GTI) -- conducted an in-depth analysis of the bill in January.

"My analysis is that, on balance, the draft law is a strong one that will go some way to ensuring the right to information is put into practice," he said.

The bill contains positive articles including sanctions for officials who obstruct access to information, Mondel said.

"Sanctions for officials are important to send a clear signal of the importance of the right to information and the consequences of refusing to implement the law," he said.

Mondel, however, found weaker elements of the bill which would undermine its effectiveness once it was passed into law.

"One of these is whether disclosure obligations set out in the law should extend to state corporations," he said.

International standards call for all bodies which receive public funding or which carry out public functions to be included in public information laws, Mondel said.

"Within Asia, countries such as India, Thailand, Nepal and Japan include public bodies within the scope of their legislation," he said.

It did not effect the competitiveness of bodies, he added, since there are exceptions to protect the legitimate commercial interests of state corporations.

The Institute for the Study of Free Flow of Information (ISAI) also found some local administrations had included state or local enterprises in bylaws on information transparency.

"The fact is, the bylaws that included local enterprises did not deteriorate competitiveness. These were a good example that could be applied to the freedom of information draft law," ISAI researcher Ahmad Faisol said.

The ISAI studied the implementation of a bylaw on information transparency in Solok regency, West Sumatra; Gorontalo and West Kalimantan.

As of 2006, there are 19 regencies which have issued bylaws on rights to public information.

"The problems included poor political will of local administrations to implement the bylaw," he said.

Ahmad said the inclusion of state enterprises into the bill would benefit the institutions regarding rumors that they served as cash cows for political parties.

"But we don't know which parties because of limited access to information," he said.

Both Mondel and Ahmad expressed their concern over the establishment of an information commission as set in the bill.

The bill stipulates two of the central information commission's seven members and two of each regional information commissions' five members would become government representatives.

"This seriously undermines the independence of bodies and does not follow practices of progressive rights to information laws in other countries," Mondel said.

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