Right to Know Day around the world - Kenya

Organizer: International Commission of Jurists - Kenya
Date: September 28, 2006
Event: Campaign for enactment of a FOI law

Description: We shall mark the Right to Know Day in a public forum in the Ministry of Info Bldg on the morning session of 28th September 2006 and hope the Minister will come down a few floors and deliberate with us. We are hoping to have our Minister for Info in attendance to inform us of the Govt position in relation to enactment of an FOI Law in Kenya and make commitment to see to it that this law is prioritized and enacted as we continue to lament existence of the Official Secrets Act in our statute books.

In the public debate we shall make a case for urgent enactment of the FOI Law before election next year 2007. The confirmed speakers include, The Chair, Parliamentary Commitee on Administration of Justice and Legal Affairs, The Govt Spokesman, The Chair, National Commission on Human Rights, Executive Member, Media Council of Kenya and a Local Government Representative. The forum will get media coverage and we will in addition run a supplement in the popular daily paper.

We shall highlight and publicise the civil society Draft FOI Bill, 2006 ( PDF 130 KB; and share with the participants present. We will also share the international principles of an FOI Law to set benchmarks for the sort of FOI regime that Kenyans need and deserve.

We are armed with easy reference materials, posters and banners that we shall use to highlight key messages on the Right to Know.

In Africa on Sept 28th we are set to release in the countries of those present at the Regional Workshop the Lagos Declaration on the Right to Access Info.

For those of us in the campaign it is a day to revitalize ourselves.