GENERAL

RTI Bill passed into law
Ghana’s Parliament yesterday 26 March, 2019 passed the Right to Information (RTI) bill into law.

Date Created : 3/27/2019 9:17:30 AM : Story Author : Ghanadistricts.com

This follows the Bill going through all the consideration stages and having a number of amendments made to it.

Under the law public and private institutions are obliged to release information except for those deemed to be for the protection of public interest. Thus the RTI law provides operationalization of Article 21 (1) (f) of the Constitution which states that “All persons shall have the right to information subject to such qualifications and laws as are necessary for a democratic society.”

Since 1999 when the RTI Bill was drafted, it witnessed several reviews, and was presented to Parliament in 2010. It only came close to being passed into law in 2016 under the previous government but that could not materialized.

However, with the current government’s promise of passing the bill into law when voted into power in 2016, pressure was brought to it by civil society organisations for the government to honour its promise.