Status of the right to information in Pacific Island countries
a public school by making RTI requests about the availability of seats for the poor, and eligibility norms.32 The information that was obtained helped prove that the school in question was not making places available for low-income students as mandated by law. As a result, more lowincome students were accepted, giving them access to public education.33 In another case involving municipal water access, South African villagers in Emkhandlwini used South Africa’s RTI law, with the help of NGO Open Democracy Advice Centre to request the minutes of council meetings about the provision of water, the municipality’s integrated development plan and its budget.34 The documents, which were released after a six-month delay, showed that the village was supposed to receive access to clean water. Villagers were able to apply pressure on the municipality by getting the media to cover the issue. In response, the municipality installed fixed water tanks and delivered mobile ones in the community. When the mobile water tank supply became erratic, villagers utilized the FOI law again, this time to request the service-level agreement between the municipality and the company delivering the water. The request brought to light the fact that there was no such agreement or contract, which was a breach of South Africa’s public finance legislation; it resulted in the municipality being reported to the AuditorGeneral for investigation.35
Improves Media Reporting Finally, a robust RTI framework inherently encourages and facilitates more factual reporting by the media and can reduce misreporting by giving journalists access to source material. This also enhances the investigative skills of journalists who are often unable to access source material and therefore must rely on potentially unreliable sources.
1.2 Giving Effect to the Right to Information A. Guiding principles While there are no internationally established standards on RTI laws, we recommend taking into consideration the following eight principles (see Figure 1). These principles are based on UNCAC article 10, sources such as the Commonwealth’s ‘Model Freedom of Information Bill’ and the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative’s publication, “Information Disclosure Policy: A 32 Dokeniya, A., 2013. Implementing Right to Information - Lessons from Experience. The World Bank PREM notes – know what we deliver. p. 61. [online]. Available from: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/PUBLICSECTORANDGOVERNANCE/Resources/285741-1361973400317/PREMNote-GPSM_RTI_v3.pdf. 33 Ibid. 34 Dimba, M., 2008. Access to Information as a Tool for Socio-Economic Justice. Pambazuka News. 8 April. [online]. Available from: https://www.pambazuka.org/security-icts/access-information-tool-socio-economic-justice. 35 Ibid.
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