Sri Lanka’s Right to Information Commission (RTIC) issued a tough Public Statement on Thursday November 20th correcting irresponsible media reporting and cautioning against amendments that may ‘dilute the information right’ used by thousands of citizens and cited internationally as a crucial tool in the country’s anti-corruption struggles.

The Statement came amidst public alarm over a response by the Ministry of Health and Mass Media (the nodal agency responsible for ‘implementing’ the Act), to a parliamentary question asked by an Opposition MP last month in which the Ministry had claimed that the RTI Act will be ‘amended.’

Transparency activists have strongly criticized the Ministry’s response pointing out that the RTI Act does not need to be amended to revise the RTIC’s fee schedule that was published in the gazette in 2017. The Colombo Telegraph was told that there is no legal requirement for the RTIC’s Rules to be approved by Parliament as claimed by the Ministry and that this response is an attempt to mislead the public.   

The National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ) was the first to caution against any possible amendment of the RTI Act, emphasizing instead, the urgent need to strengthen the RTIC. The NMSJ has also expressed regret over ‘some’ Government institutions undermining the RTI Act by failing to provide information.

In the Statement issued under the hand of its Director General, the RTIC has explained that it has a particular duty to maintain its independence from Public Authorities (including the nodal agency, the Ministry) which are summoned before it as parties to appeals.

Specifically, the independent recruitment of staff and a dedicated Fund (Sections 13 (3) and 16) secures the financial independence of the Commission without which there is no functional independence. The RTIC has further stated that these statutory safeguards have been ignored wholesale. No dedicated Fund has been allowed to be operated. The RTIC has been functioning with a skeleton staff, one legal officer and two legal assistants (later increased to three) to handle an increasing case load of appeals. Staff salaries are at a minimum, the Colombo Telegraph learns.

But though all Governments had been informed of the need to allocate a separate line item in the National Budget in line with its budgetary allocation in 2017, this had been ignored. For the past nine years, the RTIC’s allocations have been placed under the nodal agency, undermining the RTIC’s financial and functional independence. Requests for additional legal staff and other essential cadre including approval to recruit mid-level positions such as information technology (IT) assistant have been ignored. In forwarding the RTIC’s requests for staff to the Ministry of Finance, which the Director General is ‘compelled to do through the Ministry of Media due to the budget line item being under that Ministry, the process has been inexplicably delayed, in one instance by eight months.

In addition, the RTIC has strongly denounced inaccurate news reporting which amounts to an interference with its quasi-judicial appeal function. The Director General stated that, in response to a routine parliamentary question asking for appeal statistics, the Office of the RTIC under his hand, had responded on 15^th October 2025 via the Ministry of Health and Mass Media, informing that 1157 appeals had been concluded and decisions handed down, out of 1306 appeals up to 30^th September 2025.

308 appeals had been ‘adjourned. However, the ‘adjournment’ of appeals had been wrongly reported as ‘unattended’ in some English newspapers on 11^th November 2025 despite the correct terminology of ‘heard and not concluded’ being reflected in the Hansard of 23^rd October 2025. The news reports had also wrongly claimed that the budget of the RTIC had been ‘reduced.’ The RTIC has pointed to a deliberate intent to mislead and said that a Right of Reply sent by the Office of the RTIC to clarify the wrong reporting had not been carried.

Adjournment for justifiable reasons, including request of parties, legal complexity of the subject matter etc are part of the normal hearing process of any tribunal. Reporting ‘adjourned’ appeals as ‘failing to attend to’ is a serious misrepresentation and a deliberate interference with the RTIC’s quasi-judicial appeal function. Typically, adjourned appeals are either resolved during the remainder of the year or brought over to the next year to conclude hearings, the Director General has said.

For example, by 15^th November 2025, the number of adjourned appeals had decreased to 244. Correspondingly, the number of appeals received by the Office of the RTIC had increased to 1538 and concluded appeals to 1304 There has been no ‘reduction’ in the number of appeals being filed. The RTIC further clarifies that there has been no reduction of its fund allocation. As reported in the Hansard of 23^rd October 2025 in the answer to the said Parliamentary question, the budgetary allocations referred to therein are not the budgetary allocations of the RTIC which are publicly available here.    

The Statement has been issued by the Director General for and on behalf of the RTIC in advance of the ten year anniversary (2026) of the enactment of the Right to Information Act, No 12 of 2016 (RTI Act), globally ranked among the best in the world. The vigorous use of the RTI Act by the public with principles of public transparency emphasized by the Right to Information Commission of Sri Lanka has been affirmed by the appellate Courts.

In 2020, UNESCO’s global report presented to the UN-GA’s High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (‘From Promise to Practice…’) singled out Sri Lanka as a ‘best practice’ model, illustrating the release of information in key cases before the RTIC. Among others, the World Bank has called upon the Government of Sri Lanka to ensure the ‘primacy of transparency’ and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has acknowledged the measures taken by the RTIC to foster ‘an (embryonic) culture of transparency among public authorities’ (Governance Diagnostic Report, September 2023).    

Despite these progressive developments, the chronic understaffing of its Office has affected its continued functioning, the RTIC states. It is emphasized that any attempt to amend Sri Lanka’s RTI Act in a manner that dilutes the nature of the information right will be to the detriment of citizens, will undermine Article 14A of the Constitution and constitute a grave setback to progressive gains made so far under the RTI regime.