Pakistan’s draft Right to Information Act has scored an “astonishing 146 points” on the RTI Rating.
The score puts the bill 11 points ahead of the best-ranked RTI law in the world, Serbia’s, which got 135 points.
The assessment of the Pakistan bill was issued by the Centre for Law and Democracy. The CLD assessment is here and the draft act is available here. The Canadian-based organization suggested a few improvements for the bill, especially by increasing the independence of the proposed three-person Information Commission.
The bill has been pending fore many months without actions, but in early July Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif asked that it be placed on the agenda of the next meeting of the Federal Cabinet for its approval. (See Freedominfo.org article.) This has no yet occurred.
“This is a remarkable draft RTI law,” said Toby Mendel, Executive Director of CLD. “It would be wonderful if the government of Pakistan were to pass such a strong law and we would then be very happy to work with them and other stakeholders to support implementation.”
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