Rights group condemns new nondisclosure rule by PSC

Nairobi, Kenya: International Center for Policy and Conflict (ICPC) strongly abhors the Public Service Commission of Kenya (PSC) new rule blocking civil servants and other public officials from disclosing information held by the State.

In a statement sent to newsrooms, International Center for Policy and Conflict executive director Ndung’u Wainaina stated that the rule is insulting and an outrageous step in recreating KANU Era of opaque securocrat state and state answerable only to the state itself. He says it takes the country back to period where executive orders and regulations were used to obliterate and circumvent Constitution.  Authoritarianism is nurtured and maintained not by intolerance and brutality only.  It is upheld by extensive silencing of freedom of expression.

President Kenyatta’s response to deepening poverty, inequality, faltering social cohesion is rolling back human rights. The PSC new rule is merely one of a much bigger and problematic effort to centralize power in the security cluster of government.

It is deeply disturbing that the last two years of President Uhuru Kenyatta regime have seen Kenya teetering towards authoritarianism and serious efforts have been to curb freedom for press and attack on civil society. 

The despicable effort by the PSC block information marks yet another black spot of President Kenyatta government and represents a pattern where democratic gains are slowly being eroded. A responsive and accountable democracy that can meet the basic needs of the people is built upon transparency and the free flow of information.

We unequivocally seek a country and a world where all citizens have the right to know that is to be free to access and to share information. This right is fundamental to any democracy that is open, accountable, participatory and responsive; able to deliver the social, economic and environmental justice needs.

 Public Service Commission crude attempts at gagging civil servants from releasing information to public without authorization is retrogressive and does not pass constitutional muster. It is affront to freedom of press and blocking state from being held to account by Kenyans. 

President Kenyatta government has been engulfed in series of high-level corruption implicated senior public officials.  The corrupt practices and nepotism that happens inside state is exposed if citizens have freedom of expression and access information.

The world is opening up access to information and Kenya should be moving toward an open and free society for all instead of closing access to information and classifying documents. Constitution of  Kenya 2010 provisions on access to information represent a giant leap forward by the government in terms of transparency and accountability.

The new rule by PSC fundamentally undermines the struggle for whistleblower protection and access to information. It is measure, which could have the combined effect of fundamentally undermining the right to access information, and the freedom of expression enshrined in the Constitution

 Protection of state information should meet the standard of unobstructed access of all citizens to information held by the state and that there will be no punishment of people who reveal misdeeds. As we have seen in the past, whistleblowers have been silenced, hammered and people would be stopped from blowing the whistle. Without that sense of being protected by the law, protected by the constitution, people are going to be even more afraid and this bill is a very bad sign.

This new rule to civil servants would create a state of secrets’ in following ways: 

Any state agency, government department, even a parastatal or a county government, can classify public information as secret.

 Anything and everything can potentially be classified as secret at official discretion if it is in the ‘national interest’. Even ordinary information relating to service delivery can become secret.

Commercial information can be made secret, making it very difficult to hold business and government accountable for inefficiency and corruption.

 Anyone involved in the ‘unauthorized’ handling and disclosure of classified information can be prosecuted; not just the state official who leaks information as is the case in other democracies.

The disclosure even of some information, which is not formally classified, can land citizens in jail. This will lead to self-censorship and have a chilling effect on free speech.

Whistleblowers and journalists could face more time in prison than officials who deliberately conceal public information that should be disclosed

A complete veil is drawn over the workings of the security agencies. It will prevent public scrutiny of security agencies should they abuse their power or  breach human rights

The Public Service Commission should be made fully aware that  any such rule and or law is  bound by the Constitutional values (of) accountable, open and responsive government, realized among other things through freedom of expression and access to information.

 Consequently we demand that: Any limitation of access to information held by state must be to extent allowed by the Constitution and does not hinder any citizen from enjoying fundamental human rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution