In the name of Almighty Allah
Joint statement of CSHRN & Nai supporting Afghanistan’s Open Media On the approval of the Law on Access to Information
July 02. 2014
Kabul Afghanistan
The Afghan parliament approved the Law on Access to Information containing 6 chapters and 32 articles with the majority of votes on Monday, 30th of June.2014.
The law on access to information was under the review of the governmental agencies for almost three years, and about two months ago, it was sent to the house of the people for approval.
The main discussion on the law on access to information as one of the main human rights of the citizens was conducted by CSHRN for the first time in 2005, and then its first draft was prepared by one of CSHRN’s working group in Mazar-e-Sharif.
The mentioned draft law was completed after the continuous and non-tiring efforts of CSHRN and its member organizations, Nai Supporting Afghanistan Open Media, civil activists, journalists and extensive national consultations across the country. After its completion, the draft law was sent to the national assembly after extensive and deep review and assessment by the ministry of culture and information, ministry of justice, council of ministers and the high council of media to be approved.
We consider the approval of the law on Access to Information by the national assembly a significant step in promoting transparency and accountability and effectiveness of development programs in Afghanistan.
The Law will provide great opportunities and pave the way for fighting corruption and strengthening the role of media in providing information.
Nai supporting Afghanistan open media and Civil Society & Human Rights Network of Afghanistan (CSHRN) beside thanking and praising the Afghan lower house for passing the mentioned law, states the bellow point in connection to that:
1- Passing the Law on Access to Information is a majorand joint achievement of CSHRN, Nai and the house of people. We congratulate the whole nation for this huge success and thank all Afghan MPs for passing this law.
2- The Civil Society & Human Rights Network and Nai supporting Afghanistan Open Media insistently demand the Afghan senate to pass the Law on access to Information as soon as possible in order to be sent to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan for signature.
3- We ask the president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to make efforts for speeding up the process of finalizing the law. Obviously Implementing the Law will requires an enforcing structure to be established, so we demand the president to issue orders of its implementation to the relevant agencies.
4- We sincerely appreciate the efforts made by the civil society institutions, civil society activists and the journalists towards formation and adaptation of the law, and thank each and every individual who supported the law especially those, whose continuous efforts and hardworking resulted in ratifying the law by the house of people of Afghanistan.
5- We insistently demand all of the civil society institutions and activists, media and journalists to keep on their efforts in the process of executing the Law on Access to Information and its institutionalization in the country.
6- Nai supporting Afghanistan open media and CSHRN will more carefully review and assess the last draft of the law and submit their viewpoints to the Afghan senate.
In Hope of securing the Rule of Law and generalizing the culture of transparency in Afghanistan!