Himal Interviews: Sri Lanka’s right to information

Right to Information (RTI) laws, which seek to promote   accountability by enabling individuals to obtain information from public bodies, have become an important political and legal part of democratic movements in Southasia. Over the past two decades, almost every country in the region has instituted such laws, with Sri Lanka enacting it most recently, in 2016. However, even as the country's RTI Act has been widely praised and is considered among the most far-reaching in the world, there are concerns that it is not yet embedded in the country's democratic process.

In this interview, we spoke to Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena, a member of Sri Lanka's RTI Commission and a senior lawyer who has been part of the country's RTI movement since its inception. She explains to us the roots of Sri Lanka's RTI movement, how it compares to similar laws in Southasia in theory and in practice, and why it remains to be a part of the country's democratic discourse.

Himal Southasian: Could you give us an overview of how the RTI entered Sri Lankan civic and political discourse?

Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena: Sri Lanka's RTI movement came from a civil-liberties discourse that took place among a fairly small number of journalists, academics and legal activists, unlike in India, where it grew from a grassroots campaign. There was strong impetus from the fact that the media had, about a decade and a half ago, focused on the right to information as a plank of general media-law reform. So it was perceived to be a part of a media-rights discourse and not a democratic tool, certainly not the kind used in anti-hunger or anti-poverty movements like in India. However, since the movement was led by a group of people who very consciously kept themselves apart from the political dynamics of the day, they were not amenable to political pressure.