National advisory council (NAC) member Aruna Roy has said that while formulating laws, the government should make sure that none of the clauses of the law overrules the provisions of the right to information (RTI) act. “If there is already such a law, we should create pressure on the government to expunge those particular sections,” she said.

Roy was talking at a meeting on pre- legislative consultation process and RTI rules amendments, held in the capital on Wednesday.

“The draft of a new law does not come in the public domain till the last stage. The entire process takes place in an environment of exclusivity, to say the least,” she added.

Roy said that consulting the citizens would about clarity in the democratic regime of the country.

The meeting, conducted by the national campaign for people’s right to information (NCPRI) and centre for inclusive media discussed methods to involve citizens in the law making process.

Roy found support in NCPRI member Shekhar Singh who said that currently there was no mechanism to consult people on draft laws though recently the government had asked for people’s inputs on a few laws. “All of us should have a right to give our suggestions and if they are rejected, the government should tell us the reason for the same,” said Singh.

Political analyst Yogendra Yadav sad that legislators no more felt that law making was their duty and the public also did not expect them to do that.

“May be we can look for alternate sites from where laws can emanate,” said he.

The idea did not find many takers in the gathering.

Jagdeep Chhokar, founder, Association for Democratic Reforms, said that political parties were supposed to cat as a bridge between public and the government and as such there was no need of any outside agency or institution to make people aware about upcoming laws. Chhoker said that there was a need to make the existing system work and push for accountability in political parties. According to him, people’s opinions should be reflected through political process of which political parties were a part.

Usha Ramanathan, lawyer, said that because of the whip issued within political parties, many members of the parliament found it impossible to give their views on the bill.

Venkatesh Nayak of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative said that all the comments and suggestions received on the bill must themselves be publicly available. “They, along with the government’s response should be organized and appended to the text of the bill when introduced before a legislature,” said he.

It is to be noted that in 2009, only 16 percent of the total parliament time was spent on the legislative business.

Out of the total bills passed in the Lok Sabha, 27 percent were discussed for less than 5 minutes.

Only five bills were debated for more than three hours.