Protecting Freedoms, Guaranteening Rights: Study of Freedom of Information and Right to Information

Abstract

The analysis of policies made for the protection of freedoms and rights of the citizens have shown that the availability of timely and appropriate information about the actions of state agencies is a significant factor in achieving transparent and accountable governance. The institutions created for this purpose are helpful mechanisms in checking the role of agencies involved in policy making and implementation. Absence of such institutions leads to misuse of law, poor implementation of various public policies, corruption and other malicious governance practices. This paper is an attempt to analyze such institutions in the two democracies of the world: the US and India. The paper compares the Freedom of Information Act of the US, adopted in 1966 and the Right to Information Act, India implemented in 2005. In both the countries these acts are playing crucial role in ensuring access of information to the citizens. Comparative analysis of these acts shows that the US Freedom of Information act has successfully achieved the objective of developing a more accountable and transparent political system. The structures and processes evolving under the Freedom of Information act effectively provide information related to the policy making and implementation. The RTI Act in India on the other hand suffers from structural contradictions and deficiencies. The Indian act establishes parallel bureaucratic paraphernalia for the implementation of the RTI act increasing bureaucratic hassles in providing information. This has further resulted into failure in effective policy implementation and monitoring. The successful implementation of the act in the US on the other hand has led to developing efficient, transparent and accountable governance.