Right to Information Bill returns to Parliament
The Right to Information Bill (RTI) aimed at ensuring easy access to information passed through its first reading stage in Parliament yesterday.
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That was after the Deputy Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Dr Dominic Ayine, had laid the document before the House.
The Speaker of Parliament, Mr Edward Doe Adjaho, referred the bill to the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee of the House for consideration and report.
The RTI Bill has, since 1999, received the backing of various governments when it first came into public discourse.
In 2002, the government drafted the first RTI Bill to operationalise the constitutional right to information under Article 21 (1) f of the 1992 Constitution.
But 20 years into the Fourth Republic, no law has been passed to protect and facilitate the enjoyment of the right to information in Ghana.
Since 2002, when the first RTI Bill was drafted, successive governments have promised but failed to enact the required law that provides the explicit platform for the people of Ghana to enjoy their constitutional guarantee that states, “All persons shall have the right to information, subject to such qualifications and laws as are necessary in a democratic society.”
When the bill went before the House during the Fifth Parliament and was referred to the committee, much work, including regional fora, was organised to seek views from the public and incorporate them in the bill.
After all those efforts, however, the bill could not see the light of the day before that Parliament came to an end on January 6, 2013.
Civil society groups and members of the media have been complaining about the delay in the passage of the bill.
There have been calls from various groups on the government to pass the bill into law to allow easy access to information.
Much agitation by the RTI Coalition, a non-governmental organisation led by the then human rights activist and now Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, was made, particularly during the Fifth Parliament of the Fourth Republic.