Freedom of Information: A Comparative Legal Survey - Federation of ...

Public anger over corruption and the lack of transparency in government, which was widely believed to have
contributed to the economic crisis, had led to the adoption, three months prior to the 1997 Constitution, of
the Offi cial Information Act (RTI Law), 275 which came into effect on 9 December 1997.
The RTI Law has a number of positive features, including a wide scope of application, good general
process guarantees, for the most part, and a reasonably limited regime of exceptions. At the same time,
it has a number of fairly serious shortcomings, including the absence of hard timelines for responding to
requests for information, a lack of independence on the part of the oversight body and very few promotional
measures.
Although the RTI Law was initially greeted with enthusiasm and some important successes, 276 this soon
diminished due to weak enforcement and, in particular, long delays in processing requests. The Offi cial
Information Commission’s 277 English language website records 214 complaints and 135 appeals in 2007
(the total number of requests to public bodies is not recorded), although it does not indicate what the
outcome of these were. 278
The Right of Access
The right of access is cast in the Thai RTI Law as a procedural right, at section 11, to make a request
for information and, if that request meets certain minimum threshold standards (such as describing the
information sought in suffi cient detail), the public body to which the request is directed must provide the
information.
The Law does not include any statement of purpose or objectives.
Information is defi ned very broadly to include any material that communicates anything, regardless of the
form that material takes. Offi cial information, to which the right of access applies, is defi ned simply as
information in the possession of a State agency (the term used to describe a public body), whether relating
to State business or to a private individual (section 4).
A public body is defi ned broadly in section 4 as, “central administration, provincial administration, local
administration, State enterprise, Government agency attached to the National Assembly, Court only
in respect of the affairs unassociated with the trial and adjudication of cases, professional supervisory
organisation, independent agency of the State and such other agency as prescribed in the Ministerial
Regulation” (section 4). This effectively captures the administrative functions of the legislative and judicial
branches of government, as well as a fairly wide range of public bodies. It does not, however, cover private
bodies which are substantially publicly funded.
The right of access, as provided for in section 11, applies to any person. However, the extent to which it
applies to aliens – defi ned to include those lacking Thai nationality and not residing in Thailand, as well as
certain companies and associations – shall be provided by Ministerial regulation (sections 9 and 11).
Procedural Guarantees
Anyone may make a request for information not otherwise required to be published or made available for
inspection, and the information shall be provided as long as the request is suffi ciently detailed to identify the
information being sought. Requests may be rejected where they are for an excessive amount of information
or made too frequently without reasonable cause (section 1).
Information shall be provided within a reasonable length of time, which is not actually specifi ed in the
Law. This has caused considerable problems of delay in some cases and is one of the major shortcomings
of the Law. Where the record might be damaged by giving access, the public body may extend the period
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