Right To Information Act: A Case for amendment

It was on June 3rd that Central Information Commission (CIC) has ruled that political parties should be brought within the ambit of the Right to Information Act. In the rationale that CIC provided for this peculiar ruling it argued that political parties "have been substantially financed by the Central government and, therefore, they are held to be public authorities under Section 2(h) of the RTI Act.”

It continues to argue that “The criticality of the role being played by these political parties in our democratic set-up and the nature of duties performed by them also point towards their public character, bringing them in the ambit of Section 2(h). The constitutional and legal provisions discussed herein above also point towards their character as public authorities.’’

It seems that two major points that are being raised by CIC in order to bring political parties under the purview of RTI can be enumerated as "substantially financed by the Central government" and their role in political structure of this country, which according to CIC makes political parties "public authorities".

To reach any conclusion of our own, one has to dwell into these claims. Let us be clear that political parties are not government department or part of it. In legal term they are completely separate from the state structure.

The financial support that CIC refers to mostly come as the ad spaces that government provides to different parties in order to ensure that electorate get to know the policies proposed by each parties. A noble attempt indeed in a country where government machinery still remains much more widespread than other private actors.

Now coming to the transparency part, as per the existing legal structure it is mandatory for all political parties to open up their accounts before Income Tax department and the Election Commission. No one can deny the fact that any citizen of this country can avail these information from the said organisation through RTI. If these organisation feel that it requires more information regarding financial situation from political parties it can call upon them to provide such information. Political parties are legally bound to produce such information before Income Tax Department or Election Commission.

Another point that CIC raises is the nature of political parties as 'public authority'. Public authority can be identified as "Any authority which has a legal mandate to govern, administrate a part or aspect of public life, such as all branches of the executive power of a state, province, municipality etc." As per this it is difficult to identify the political parties as public authority. Political parties does not govern any aspect of public life, they can never impose their will upon the public or are legally not part of any executive. There is wall between an individual working as a part of public authority (such as CM, PM etc) or as the member of a political party. A political party is a voluntary association of citizens who joined together based on certain ideology and works within a particular structure. Therefore undeniably all political parties are accountable to its members. This does not mean that any independent individual with no affiliation can be allowed to access such information. 

All political parties have their own strategies, criteria to decide in times of disagreement and organisational policies, which are their own internal matters. In any game situation it would be folly to let the opposition know your strategy. A system based on party politics can be seen as a situation of continues game where one should allow parties to have their privacy. At this point it can be conceded that CIC is within its legal rights to include political parties into public authority as the definition of public authority in RTI act allows for using the campaign spaces provide by government to make this declaration. If CIC tries to interfere in the internal matters using such excuses there is a chance that political parties might disavow the ad spaces provided by the government with citizens of this country ending up in the loosing side.

On Human Rights & Capital Punishment

Substantial number of countries all over the world as of now does not have capital punishment as part of their legal system, the highest punishment for any crimes committed in these countries is determined to be life imprisonment. A fact that was able to provide different movements and organisation all around the world confidence to demand the cessation of capital punishment at a global level. Such movements at international and national levels were able to gather popularity and support enough to make themselves heard in the political sphere of the countries which still uphold capital punishment. India is one such country that still maintains capital punishment as part of its legal system, even though courts are being directed by the supreme court to pronounce such punishment in 'rarest of the rare' case. To the surprise of many, the phrase 'rarest of the rare' which can take a human life is not defined adequately. Debates and deliberation in-order to bring forward an adequate understanding of 'rarest of the rare' are raging in India along with the movements which ask for the total ban on capital punishment. Arguments are being formulated and presented in the public sphere by different actors both for and against these positions.

One of the oft used argument in support of 'right to life' points towards the possibility of fault with the evidence available with the courts of law while passing judgements and emergence of certain unknown aspects later, which might prove the convict to be innocent or to a realization that his/her part in the incident is not as large as believed to be earlier. When such a scenario emerges if the court wants to rethink its judgement it would not be possible if the death penalty has been implemented. Even though this position does require adequate consideration this particular note does not attempt to engage with it. Rather attempt here is to enunciate the relationship between the concept of human rights and capital punishment.

Human rights can be understood as those inalienable rights which every human individual possess by the virtue of being a member of human species. As human rights are inalienable, under no circumstance can it be violated. It stands different in nature from privileged rights (such as the rights emerging from citizenship) which requires the individuals to perform certain function or to occupy certain status in order to be able to avail them. Right to life and individual sovereignty over one's own life stand at the centre of liberal values. Right to life finds itself as most prominent among human rights. Article 3 of 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly declares that everyone has the 'right to life'. If we subscribe to the conception of human rights which include 'right to life' then we have to encounter an obvious contradiction that stares at us, the fact of existence of the death penalty in a number of countries in the world (including India).

These being said it becomes imperative to make an attempt to understand the principle on which a justification for capital punishment is made possible. One way to conceptualize it is through an understanding of retributive justice system. In a retributive justice system, those who commit a certain set of crimes can be given capital punishment. Such a framework takes away from the 'right to life' the status of being a human right and reduces it to a privilege. The merit of this principle rest with the relief that it provides. It is capable of satisfying those who want certain rights to be recognized as a human right but still want to maintain capital punishment. It leads to the establishment a conception of human right without 'right to life' being part of it.

Another possibility would be to bring in a socially constructed definition of human being, that is, to deny and de-legitimize the identification of a human being as such just by the virtue of belonging to the human species but to bring in other considerations (such as not committing certain actions which society see as inhuman). Unlike the former position where social understanding of the human being is same as the biological one, here the very idea of being human stripped off its biological notion. Thus it makes it impossible to have any human rights as defined at the beginning of this note.

The conclusion that can be derived from the discussion above would be that at a conceptual level those countries which still maintain capital punishment as a part of their justice system does not conceptually recognize 'right to life' as human right. At this juncture, doubt can be raised about the existence of the human rights itself but let us not forget there is one right which even the most cruel tyrant of our time will claim to have provided to even his most hated enemy, that is, the right to fair trial. There is not even a single country in this world that would not argue that it provided everyone within its jurisdiction with a fair trail. Thus even though there is no consensus among the countries of the world with respect to the 'right to life' as a human right, the fair trail as an ideal concept which requires to be implemented globally is accepted. Making it probably the only human right that no one dares to question.