Fafen calls for overhaul of KP Right to Information Act

Twelve years after Khyber Pakhtunkhwa enacted Pakistan's first Right to Information (RTI) law, the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) says the pioneering framework remains underutilized and vulnerable to disinformation. Fafen attributes this to weak enforcement and structural gaps.

In a policy brief released Saturday, Fafen urged the KP Assembly and provincial government to implement targeted legal and institutional reforms. The goal is to transform the RTI law into an effective mechanism for proactive disclosure and public accountability, specifically to combat disinformation.

The province enacted the law after Article 19A, guaranteeing the right to information, was added to the Constitution in 2010. However, Fafen's assessment of 190 provincial public bodies' websites revealed a significant implementation gap, with public bodies proactively disclosing information on average.