The death of the Right to Information Bill in Botswana

Abstract

Adopting a rights-based approach, this paper argues that the right to information is a fundamental human right. Hence, governments are obligated to make information available to citizens by signing Right to Information (RTI) covenants and acts to facilitate the availability of information. The developing world lags behind in this regard and, similarly, Botswana does not have a RTI Act. Efforts to correct this were killed in April 2012 when the RTI bill was rejected. This was a regressive step; hence, Botswana failed the democracy test. Hence, reason must triumph over partisan politics for the bill to be passed. Finally three general lessons emerge from this case; (i) in dominant party systems, legislation reflects the interests of the ruling party; (ii) the need to strengthen parliaments in dominant party systems to entrench democracy; and (iii) the need for non-state actors to lobby and advocate for democracy-enhancing legislation such the RTI act.