Military rep walks out of constitution meeting over right to information

In the latest chapter of ongoing disagreement within the committee of 50 tasked with rewriting the constitution, the Armed Forces representative pulled out from a closed meeting on Tuesday during a conversation over the freedom of information clause, several media reported. 

According to sources cited by the privately-owned Al-Watan newspaper, Magd Eddin Barakat pushed to add to the information clause a proviso specifying that it only referred to information that did not harm national security.

The committee, however, was intent on leaving out this addition, particularly youth representatives, according to Al-Watan. Some members based their objection on the fact that national security is not clearly defined in the constitution, and remains a loose and vague concept.

Barakat countered that in many countries around the world, it is accepted that freedom of information can harm national security and hence information is withheld or disclosed for several years. 

Committee members Khaled Youssef and Amro Salah tried to convince Barakat to rejoin the meeting, Al-Watan reported. As he retuned to the meeting, discussions on a compromise continued, and focused on adding a line specifying that the law will determine how to define confidentiality and access to information.

Several human rights groups and advocates have been pushing both for a clause in the constitution and a law granting freedom of information.

In one of several drafts of a right to information bill submitted to the outgoing parliament, a committee of human rights defenders, scholars and journalists worked on defining national security. Their draft defined national security as matters concerned with military information, such as arms acquisition and production, military plans and foreign threats. By doing so, members of the committee sought to set a precedent, defining national security specifically rather than leaving it vague and thus easy to invoke by authorities as a justification for curtailing rights and freedoms.