Deliberation on Bill related to protection of individual’s privacy
Kathmandu : Media and legal experts here today furnished recommendations on the Bill related to Protection of Individual Privacy after deliberating on it.
The Bill is related to the implementation of the fundamental rights guaranteed in the new constitution and it has to be enacted by September 19, the deadline set by the new constitution.
Nepal Law Commission has already submitted the draft of the Bill to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The experts convened in a consultative meeting jointly organized by Freedom Forum, Internet Society Nepal and Civic Campaign for citizen’s Right to Information commented that the preliminary draft related to the Bill had some flaws.
Arguing that the formulation of law to bring into effect the fundamental rights was a good move, they drew the attention of the concerned authority towards the unfavourable situation that could arise in the Right to Information Act 2064 and Statistic Act 2015 while introducing the Bill as per the draft as it is.
Article 28 of the new constitution stipulates Right to Privacy as the fundamental rights while Article 47 of the constitution mandates formulation of all Acts and their enactment within three years of the promulgation of the constitution.
Opining the wordings in the draft were ambiguous and grants executives high power and imposed unnecessary taboos in the Right to Privacy, they pointed out the need to introduce a separate law related to protection of Statistics.
RTI expert Dr Ram Krishna Timlasina, Nepal Television’s Executive Director Mahendra Bista, Advocates Santosh Babu Sigdel and Orabin Subedi and Freedom Forum’s Chief Taranath Dahal among others had offered suggestions on the draft.
They also recommended to make separate provisions of privacy for individuals and organization, compensation to those exposing the privacy of others and protection of statistics among others.
