New anti-terrorism law undermines RTI
The word 'Espionage' dropped, but originally listed offences reintroduced
The Counter Terrorism Act policy framework approved by the Cabinet this week has reintroduced offences originally listed under “espionage”-whilst merely removing the word “espionage” from the document.
As such, the draft makes it an offence to voluntarily engage in any illegal, unlawful or unauthorised act for the purpose of gathering any ‘ confidential information’ -- or directly gather confidential information -“for the purpose of supplying such information to a person who is conspiring, preparing, abetting, or attempting to commit terrorism or any terrorism related offence or any other offence contained in this Act.”
It is also an offence to provide to another person any confidential information, knowing such information will be used by such other person to conspire, abet, attempt or commit terrorism or a terrorism- related offence or any other offence contained in the Act.
All these provisions were included in the original 57-page policy framework that this newspaper first published in October 2016. The latest draft -which was rushed through the Cabinet on Tuesday in anticipation of a vote in Brussels on a motion to deprive Sri Lanka of the GSP+ on Thursday -- is 73 pages long and has been fleshed out. The Sunday Times obtained a copy of the final version which was revised on April 23, 2017, and approved two days later by the Cabinet.
Confidential information has a broad definition under the CTA policy framework. It includes: “Any information not in the public domain, the dissemination of which is likely to have an adverse effect on national or public security.”
Questions now arise on the position of the CTA against the Right to Information Act, also enacted by this Government, which denotes that public security is not a ground to restrict information. The RTI Act only permits information to be withheld on the grounds of “national security, defence of the State or territorial integrity”. This means that the proposed CTA now contradicts the RTI Act. It would also prevail over the RTI Act because the draft CTA states that once enacted it will have priority over past laws.
A second draft of the CTA policy framework that was recently leaked to the media had removed the word “unity” from Part III which relates to Terrorism- Related Offences. This word has been reintroduced to the final draft under “Abetting terrorism, terrorists and Proscribed Terrorist Organisations”, where it states: “By words either spoken or