Standing against the recent move of Prime Minister Jigmi Y Thinley, who stated that the Right to Information (RTI) bill was not in a priority, Member of Parliament from Gasa, Sangay Khandu, has dared to challenge the PM as he prepares to sponsor the bill lonely in the Parliament.
MP Khandu submitted a draft of the bill to the Chairman of National Council on Friday.
“Earlier today (Friday) I submitted the draft bill on Right to Information to the honorable Chairperson of the National Council with the objective of fulfilling a constitutional provision articulated under article 7 which states right to information as a fundamental right of every Bhutanese citizen,” Khandu wrote in his blog.
According to him, the RTI bill would be privately introduced as an NC MP and not as a representative of any state agency.
The constitution grants both the Houses of the country’s Parliament to endorse laws, empowering individual or group of MPs for sponsoring bills.
“I am introducing the RTI Bill because the last few discussions in the parliament have been on transparency and accountability, both of which enhance democracy, the constitution provides for RTI as a Fundamental Right and to implement such a provision we should have laws to fulfill it, and RTI will also lead to a more vibrant democracy and open government,” online edition of The Bhutanese quoted MP Khandu as saying.
With the NC Chairman accepting the bill, it will be introduced for discussion first in the 9th session of the National Council in May 2012, he further added.
The MP has made the draft of the RTI bill available in his blog and requested Bhutanese to pass their feedbacks.
