A revised Access to Information Bill, which government gazetted last Friday, has drawn criticism from different quarters.<\/p>\n
The Malawi Chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa-Malawi), and the Media Council of Malawi (MCM), have in a statement appealed to government to review its current position on the Bill, arguing that the Bill seems to undermine the right to information as provided for in Section 37 of the country\u2019s Constitution.<\/p>\n
According to Misa-Malawi and MCM, should government insist on tabling the Bill in Parliament, Parliament must reject it.<\/p>\n
The two bodies say they are disappointed such key principles as effective enforcement, maximum disclosure, minimum exemptions, public interest override, simple, affordable and quick access procedures and whistleblower protection have been compromised.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are shocked that after years of consultations and redrafting, government has taken it upon itself to completely scrape off the establishment of an independent oversight body and has instead entrusted that responsibility with an individual government minister.<\/p>\n
The independence of ministers is always an issue of concern to us and entrusting enforcement of such legislation to a minister undermines the spirit of effective enforcement of this important law,\u201d reads the statement.<\/p>\n
Misa Malawi and Media Council say the initial Bill had a clause which provided for \u201cinvalidity of laws inconsistent with the provisions of the ATI legislation\u201d. But According to the new Bill, it has been removed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe clause above has been removed in the approved Bill. However, section 3 (2) (c) on application of the law has been expanded to \u2018exclude from publication information under the Official Secrets Act.\u2019<\/p>\n
This basically means that government has upheld the supremacy of the Official Secrets Act, which is an archaic law that is inconsistent with the new constitutional order and undermines the principle of maximum disclosure and minimum exemptions,\u201d reads the statement, signed by Misa Malawi Chairperson Thom Khanje and MCM Chairperson, Professor Wiseman Chijere Chirwa.<\/p>\n
The statement says scrapping off the clause and holding the Official Secrets Act defeats the essence of the right to information and advances secrecy rather than transparency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the above, we feel that the approved ATI Bill has been heavily compromised and needs to be reviewed to ensure that the right to information is not defeated. Misa- Malawi and the Media Council of Malawi, therefore, call on government to review its position on these matters.<\/p>\n
We have confidence in government and strongly believe that our request will be considered,\u201d reads the statement.<\/p>\n
It concludes: \u201cWe also request members of Parliament to reject the current version of the Bill as it is not in line with recommendations and general consensus from various stakeholders who participated in the 10-year period of its drafting.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a related development, the Centre for the Development (Cedep) and the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR), yesterday also issued a statement in which they urged MPs to reject the Bill.<\/p>\n
The two organisations say they are not happy with the removal of a provision that information holders should disclose information in the public interest such as unauthorised use of public funds and removal of the provision which would have enabled people to demand information before the law was enacted.<\/p>\n
They also say they are not happy with the introduction of fees for Malawians to access to information.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe find the aforementioned grey areas a regrettable attempt by government to render the Information [Bill] toothless in this democratic dispensation. The law, if enacted in its gazetted version, will fall short of addressing key issues such as Cashgate as well as other forms of power-abuse, among other vices,\u201d the statement reads.<\/p>\n
It adds: \u201cIt is in view of this that CHRR and Cedep are calling upon all well-meaning parliamentarians to reject the gazetted version of the Bill once tabled in Parliament till such highlighted concerns are addressed in line with the Constitution of Malawi, the supreme law of the land.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bill was circulated to MPs on Tuesday and it is currently appealing on parliament\u2019s Order Paper.provided for \u201cinvalidity of laws inconsistent with the provisions of the ATI legislation\u201d. But According to the new Bill, it has been removed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe clause above has been removed in the approved Bill. However, section 3 (2) (c) on application of the law has been expanded to \u2018exclude from publication information under the Official Secrets Act.\u2019<\/p>\n
This basically means that government has upheld the supremacy of the Official Secrets Act, which is an archaic law that is inconsistent with the new constitutional order and undermines the principle of maximum disclosure and minimum exemptions,\u201d reads the statement, signed by Misa Malawi Chairperson Thom Khanje and MCM Chairperson, Professor Wiseman Chijere Chirwa.<\/p>\n
The statement says scrapping off the clause and holding the Official Secrets Act defeats the essence of the right to information and advances secrecy rather than transparency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the above, we feel that the approved ATI Bill has been heavily compromised and needs to be reviewed to ensure that the right to information is not defeated. Misa-Malawi and the Media Council of Malawi, therefore, call on government to review its position on these matters.<\/p>\n
We have confidence in government and strongly believe that our request will be considered,\u201d reads the statement.<\/p>\n
It concludes: \u201cWe also request members of Parliament to reject the current version of the Bill as it is not in line with recommendations and general consensus from various stakeholders who participated in the 10-year period of its drafting.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a related development, the Centre for the Development (Cedep) and the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR), yesterday also issued a statement in which they urged MPs to reject the Bill.<\/p>\n
The two organisations say they are not happy with the removal of a provision that information holders should disclose information in the public interest such as unauthorised use of public funds and removal of the provision which would have enabled people to demand information before the law was enacted.<\/p>\n
They also say they are not happy with the introduction of fees for Malawians to access to information.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe find the aforementioned grey areas a regrettable attempt by government to render the Information [Bill] toothless in this democratic dispensation. The law, if enacted in its gazetted version, will fall short of addressing key issues such as Cashgate as well as other forms of power-abuse, among other vices,\u201d the statement reads.<\/p>\n
It adds: \u201cIt is in view of this that CHRR and Cedep are calling upon all well-meaning parliamentarians to reject the gazetted version of the Bill once tabled in Parliament till such highlighted concerns are addressed in line with the Constitution of Malawi, the supreme law of the land.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bill was circulated to MPs on Tuesday and it is currently appealing on parliament\u2019s Order Paper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A revised Access to Information Bill, which government gazetted last Friday, has drawn criticism from different quarters. The Malawi Chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa-Malawi), and the Media Council of Malawi (MCM), have in a statement appealed to government to review its current position on the Bill, arguing that the Bill seems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19583"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19584,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19583\/revisions\/19584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}