The Right to Information has traditionally been seen as a chore by administrations and state institutions – it is still a public right that goes largely ignored.
Source: Twitter - mvspokesperson
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states; "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
This article forms the basis of the Right To Information, or RTI, which allows the public and civil society access to information held by the public sector. It is a tool which allows the people to hold the government and public sector accountable – how many and where and why are certain projects being undertaken, where the public funds are, whether it is being funded by tax monies, how is it being spent, and so on and so forth.
The Maldives ratified its Right to Information Act in 2014, establishing an Information Commissioner's Office on 13 July of the same year, mandated with implementing the act and promoting access to information. The RTI Act "determines the principles by which the scope of the right to information in the Maldives is defined; and the principles by which providing the right to access information produced, held or maintained by a State Institute is granted to any member of the general public, in order that the matters of the State are conducted with transparency and accountability."
On 22 July 2014, Abdulazeez Jamaal Aboobakr was appointed as the first Information Commissioner of the Maldives. He left the office on 21 July 2019, after completing his five-year term. On 31 October 2019, Hussein Fiyaz Moosa, was appointed as the commissioner. He resigned on 21 March 2021. On 6 September, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih appointed Ahmed Ahid Rasheed as Commissioner. Rasheed had worked with Transparency Maldives in the initial efforts to introduce right to information legislation in the Maldives and hopes are high at last for a significantly more productive term.
However, looking back at how administrations have broached the staffing and bolstering of the commission might hold a clue as to why the Right to Information is more ‘open to interpretation’ from the administrations and institutions rather than the Information Commission itself.
Article 47 of the Act mandates the appointment of an Information Commissioner within 60 days of the post becoming vacant. However, the administration has been lacking in this regard, having taken 102 days to appoint Hussein Fiyaz Moosa after Jamaal Aboobakr left office, and an even more significant 170 days to appoint Ahid Rasheed after Moosa resigned.
Article 37 of the Act mandates proactive disclosure on the part of public institutions. While almost all state institutions have, on their websites, details of their functions and structure, areas such as the responsibilities and duties of high ranking officials, their powers and scope of discretion and procedure followed in decision making within that scope, the budgets allocated, including the particulars of all plans, proposed expenditures and details of disbursements made are not. For instance, the Ministry of Education, which controls a sector budget of MVR3 billion allocated for 2021, has minimal or no information available on its website on areas such as the budget allocated or the individual remunerable and benefits received by all its employees. This may, in fact, be true for all state institutions. It would seem to appear that, for state institutions, the Right to Information means hiding behind the information they are happy to release while deeming the more ‘problematic’ information proprietary, sensitive or redacted under ‘national security’ — much like the Asset Declaration forms of politicians the spirit of the law can be seen to have been subverted to suit the agency’s needs rather than truly being accountable to the public.
The table below shows the proactive disclosure requirements specified in the Act.
Aimon Latheef, who has taken up a campaign to bolster and highlight the RTI; sometimes even seeking information classed as mandatory for proactive disclosure under Article 37, started his requests on 4 July 2020. As of 3 August, Latheef has sent 207 requests for information to state institutions — only 39 percent sent the requested information before the deadline of 21 days as stipulated in the Act with the institutions themselves never penalised for breaching the deadline. Latheef revealed that, in his experience, state institutions do not make an active effort to publicly disclose information.
According to the information available on the website of the Information Commissioner's Office, out of 686 state institutions, 674 have identified, or designated, information officers. Astoundingly institutions such as the Supreme Court, the Health Protection Agency, the Maldives National University and the Islamic University of Maldives do not have a designated information officer — if one is to include state owned organisations; even the State Trading Organisation.
Sources this publication spoke to raised concerns over how well the information officers are trained, with some having experienced difficulties with the officers not regarding the requests as an urgent matter or not knowing that they are answerable to the public and specifically to any RTI request; providing the request is not in breach of existing laws.
Members of the public are also reported to be reluctant to exercise their right to information, for fear of repercussions such as losing their jobs or other retaliatory actions by powerful figures and institutions. Aimon Latheef, however, confirmed that he has to date not received any threats based on any requests submitted.
It stands to reason that the Information Commissioner's Office should be able to function even without a commissioner, however, without a commissioner the office appears unable to meet even its basic functions. One reason for this may be the low staff numbers at the office. With only two positions out of nine being filled in the legal and case management sections of the office plans are reportedly being rolled out to establish a digital system that will increase efficiencies. However, a system is only as good as the processes and people behind it.
While there seemed to be this perception of almost a militant hesitation to sharing information during the Yameen Administration; the first high profile arbitration during the Solih Administration ended up with the Commission deciding for the government — indications again that rather than serving the public interests the Commission, due to their purse strings and other resources being controlled by state institutions, has to compromise in a manner that does not best serve the public good.
The situation does appears to be improving since 2019, since after the appointment of Fiyaz Moosa as commissioner. There is still however huge scope for improvement.
It is difficult to ascertain how the situation has improved with the Solih administration, as even the bare minimum might appear a lot compared to the prior administration. Hopes are high for the new Commissioner – especially if his vision is to take even bigger strides towards building more robust mechanisms and bolstering institutional autonomy, and independence.
