SHILLONG DECLARATION ON THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION
Declaration made by the participants of the Third National RTI Convention, held in Shillong, between March 10-12, 2011
WE, THE PARTICIPANTS OF THE THIRD NATIONAL RTI CONVENTION,
HEREBY DECLARE THAT:
1. It is the responsibility of the government to properly implement proactive disclosures under Section 4 of the RTI Act. We therefore demand that they urgently fulfil this responsibility.
2. We urgently need an anti-corruption commission or body, like the Lokpal/Lokayukta, which can ensure that information accessed through the RTI Act that exposes corruption is acted upon and the guilty are held accountable.
3. It is the moral responsibility of the government to protect RTI activists and users, and take swift legal action against the attackers. It is also the moral obligation of governments and information commissions to ensure that, if an activist is attacked, the information that was being sought by the assaulted activist is urgently and on a priority basis, put in the public domain and followed up.
4. There must be a process by which all draft legislations, before they are introduced in Parliament or in legislative assemblies, are put in the public domain and there are public consultations before their enactment.
5. The constitution and functioning of information commissions requires overhauling. The process of selecting commissioners must be transparent and participatory, and commissions must ensure that the promotion of transparency is their sole focus.
6. We want the Government of India to set up a National RTI Council (similar to the Central Employment Guarantee Council) which has, as members, people from various states, so that problems in implementing the RTI Act can be monitored regularly.
7. Public private partnerships, the private sector, political parties, trade unions, NGOs, and cooperative societies are all under the purview of the RTI Act. Rules and procedures need to be defined to ensure that information from them can be easily accessed.
8. Exemption given under Section 24 to security and intelligence agencies are irrational and contrary to national interest, and this needs to be removed – not by amendment of the Act but by withdrawing the list of notified agencies in the second schedule of the RTI Act.
9. For those areas in North Eastern India, where there are no local governments (panchayati raj institutions), rules and procedures need to be defined to facilitate the access of local level information under the RTI Act.
10. There must be transparency in religious institutions and about the use of public funds for religious purpose.
11. All government expenditure must be subject to social/public audits.
12. We stand by all the other resolutions passed by the various workshops.
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