What is RTI?
Why RTI?
The right to information (RTI) is an as inalienable fundamental human right empowering people to access information and record held by public bodies. Today it is considered an integral part of the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and freedom of thought as recognized by Resolution 59 of the UN General Assembly adopted in 1946, and most famously denoted by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that was adopted December 10, 1948 by the world comity in the backdrop of its General Assembly resolution No 217A. It has also been recognized as a basic human right among other international documents including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
In the recent years, the RTI has become the major tool for brining information into the public domain allowing the citizens to keep a vigilant eye on the working of the government and other public bodies.
The direct benefit of RTI is, of course, transparency that leads to accountability of the public bodies and public functionaries which in turn contribute to the good governance.
However, its other high-profile benefits have come on the heels of the “global economic cooperation” that was introduced with the establishment of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) such as World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) as early as in 1944 and Asian Development Bank (ADB) afterward, to mention few of them here.
The global economic cooperation initiative was doubtlessly launched with an objective to eliminate poverty which could hardly be achieved without transparency and accountability. While, these sublime goals could only be achieved by empowering the impoverished people to access information of public importance held by public bodies.
The RTI today is playing a pivotal role in improving governance and is considered the most effective tool to:
Important Note: As Per Section 6 (2) of the KP RTI Act, 2013, in case no such official i.e. Public Information Officer (PIO) has been designated by the Public body or in case of non-availability, the person incharge of the public body shall be the PIO.
PIO database can be checked here.
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