Search Results

This chapter discusses the right to privacy. Topics covered include personhood and content of a human right to privacy, legal approaches to the right to privacy, privacy of information, privacy of space and life, privacy of liberty, and privacy versus freedom of expression and right to information.

This chapter aims to pinpoint the origins of the right to information (RTI) movement. It traces the trajectory of the entire movements, from Devdungri in Rajasamund district from 1987, till the RTI Act was passed in 2005. However, the discussion shows that there were some states in India that had passed their own legislation before the RTI Act came into being. A comparison of these acts with the RTI Act, 2005 is presented, which shows that the provisions of the latter is better than these state laws. The chapter then takes a look at the implementation of the RTI Act and the innovative steps taken by Andhra Pradesh.

Despite the obvious similarities between the texts of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR) when it comes to the rights guaranteed to all persons deprived of their liberty, quite a number of differences can be observed, particularly in relation to the references to promptness. The ICCPR calls for information at the time of arrest, the ECHR obliges the authorities to convey the information promptly, and the ACHR makes no reference to time in the obligation to inform of the reasons of arrest. All three texts require that information be given in relation to any charges. This must occur promptly in all three cases. This chapter discusses the right to be informed of the reasons for the arrest, the right to habeas corpus proceedings, and the right to compensation.

This chapter looks at the guidelines for public authorities and their respective obligations under the RTI Act, 2005. It presents important decisions of the Central Information Commission (CIC) and instructions of the Indian government. It states that Public Information Officers (PIOs) help in making the right of information a reality, especially for the Indian citizens who are requesting for information. The specific duties of these PIOs as stated in the Act are identified. It then discusses the actual arrangement of the public authorities under the law. The Act also states that in case of a default, the PIOs are held liable for a penalty. This chapter ends by stressing the need for all the officials of a public authority to have intensive knowledge of the provisions of the Act.

Barry Sullivan evaluates the relationship between government transparency, human dignity, and Catholic Social Teaching. In representative democracies, such as the United States, citizens have a right to the information necessary to make informed decisions about public policy and those they elect to enact it. The citizen’s claim to such information is grounded in the belief that citizens are respected and dignified when they are able to participate in, and exercise, deliberative forms of governance and decision-making. This right, and the dignity it is based on, finds strong support in both Catholic Social Teaching and the work of the philosopher Jacques Maritain. The problem, however, arises when this same call for transparency in government is applied to the inner workings of the Catholic Church itself. The duplicity of the Catholic Church’s position—supporting human dignity and government transparency as applied to others, but not to itself—compromises its effectiveness in promoting the democratic right to information and the human rights to respect and dignity.

This chapter seeks to explore the relationship between unfair competition rules and freedom of expression, including the right to provide and obtain information. Both areas are of uncontested importance in their respective fields. Both areas developed independently. Their mutual impact and relationship are still largely unsettled in law, both domestically and even more so internationally. Freedom of expression, entailing free speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of information, both active and passive, are at the core of classical human rights. These rights to communication are of paramount importance for the functioning of democracy in pluralist societies.

It is significant that the need to secure the individuals' access to justice in the most adverse circumstances has been acknowledged in international case-law in recent years. Such has been the case, for example, of undocumented migrants. Special attention has been devoted to them in the recent case-law of both the European and the Inter-American Courts of Human Rights.This latter has issued two Advisory Opinions of historical importance, namely, Advisory Opinion n. 16 on the Right to Information on Consular Assistance in the Framework of the Due Process of Law (1999), and Advisory Opinion n. 18 on the Juridical Condition and Rights of Undocumented Migrants.

This chapter focuses on informational privacy rights—the ability to control the collection, use, and disclosure of one’s personal information. For this strand of privacy, the analysis reveals that the Court generally begins with the assumption that information should be open to exchange. This openness can become particularly problematic for adolescents who might benefit from increased protection, including protection from disclosure as well as protection against efforts to curb their access to information. How the Court recently has addressed adolescents’ needed protections provides a string of examples that may be used to influence other aspects of adolescents’ informational privacy rights. But, overall, this area of law reveals weak protections for adolescents’ informational privacy.

This chapter provides an overview of freedom of information as it is practiced in Scotland, with particular emphasis on issues concerning third-party data. One of the most common and contentious disputes under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) has to do with third-party data and whether the exemption at s 38(1)(b) applies, an issue that pits the right to information against the right to privacy. The task is to reconcile the legal imperative to keep personal information safe and to prevent it being misused by those who have collected it. The courts have made it clear that the general presumption in favour of disclosure created by FOISA does not apply to personal data. Where disclosure of information would contravene the data protection principles, the exemption in FOISA is absolute, and the authority is not required to go on to consider where the balance of the public interest lies in relation to the information. In practice, the key issues to consider are whether the requested information constitutes personal data and, if so, whether disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles.

This chapter sketches the evolution of the RTI Act. After pointing out far-reaching consequences of the Right to Information Act, and the worldwide move towards transparency, the chapter traces the judicial activism towards transparency between 1975 and 1996, till it became part of the Janata Dal’s election manifesto in 1989. Still things did not progress much till in 1995, a major workshop on RTI was held at LBSNAA on the subject. A long tug of war ensued as government came and fell till the bill was introduced in 2000. The Freedom of Information Bill passed in 2002 but was never notified. The grassroots efforts by MKSS in Rajasthan since 1990 played a major role in pushing the RTI agenda forward, ultimately leading to the formation of the NCPRI. Finally, the RTI was passed in 2005. Its journey exemplifies the advocacy coalition framework.

This chapter focuses on the passing of the Right to Information (RTI) Act in 2005, an important milestone in the history of democratic India which conferred upon common people the right to request information from any ‘public authority’. This Act, comparable to the Freedom of Information Act (USA) has tremendous potential to tackle corruption and asymmetry of information in public, and it is therefore imperative that every citizen of the country knows about this act. The chapter then looks at how the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM) undertook a campaign-on-foot to create awareness about RTI among the people of some 120 villages in 2008. Covering five districts in South Karnataka, the campaigners interacted with thousands of people in about a month on not just people's right to information, but also on different issues related to democratic development including corruption, accountability, and citizen's responsibility.

This book argues that India must build a civil service for the twenty-first century to go with its growing competitiveness in the world stage. A modern, world-class civil service will improve India’s governance. Globalization has made it imperative for countries to be competitive across the board. There are some recent developments that are encouraging, including the enactment of the Right to Information Act in June 2005 and the emergence of social audits. A recent study by Daniel Markey, ‘Developing India’s Foreign Policy Software’ suggests that India should reform its foreign service in order to compete with the world’s superpowers. This finding is relevant in the context of instituting reforms in the civil service.

Chapter 5 examines the conceptual set-up of the grievance redress system created by the Right to Education Act, and analyses studies on its performance. It highlights the deficiencies of the current system, and compares it to other, more effective systems such as grievance redress under the RTI Act. The different institutions that are part of the grievance redress system are either not sufficiently independent or do not have sufficient competences to enforce their ‘judgments’. These deficiencies, as well as additional implementation issues, also translate into a malfunctioning system ‘on the ground’. The chapter also examines other grievance redress systems for different state services (for instance, the ones created by the Right to Information Act), highlighting that some of the deficiencies found in the right to education system are actually not universal.

United Nations Development Programme worked to build a rights-based approach into each of its primary programming areas but with varying success. Access to justice programs, which seek to empower citizens through legal means, have important rights components. Work with the transgender community, for example, is clearly rights-oriented, as is Right to Information programming. Other areas have been less successful, but all have at least tried to consider what rights mean. The overall impression is of an agency that recognizes the important rights challenges, but has not yet fully decided what they mean for programming, or how they sit next to more traditional interventions.

In India, almost all retiring or retired civil servants are offered some post-retirement position in the government. A post-retirement job is usually offered as a blandishment, a practice with serious implications. In particular, it undermines the autonomy of the institution to which a retired/retiring civil servant is assigned. Providing post-retirement placements to civil servants is a pernicious practice that can destroy the moral fibre of the civil service. This chapter looks at institutions in India where a retired/retiring civil servant may find a new job, namely, regulatory commissions, information commissions, and administrative tribunals. Information commissions have been set up as independent appellate authorities with the enactment of the Right to Information Act.

This chapter examines administrative accountability through the democratic pillar of public transparency. One of the pillars of democratic accountability is the availability of adequate information in the public domain about the functioning government. It has taken a social movement for transparency in government to establish people’s right to information through the passage of the Right to Information Act in 2005. However, traditional administration has not reconciled to its demands and PPPs are kept out of its purview on the plea that they are not public authorities. The Lok Pal (ombudsman) Bill has been passed in response to another struggle of civil society.