Information Commission (Bangladesh)

The Information Commission Bangladesh is an independent statutory body responsible for ensuring citizens have access to information according to the Right to Information Act, 2009. The commission is mostly made up of bureaucrats. Abdul Malek, former secretary to the government of Bangladesh, became Chief Information Commissioner on 22 March 2023.

History
The Information Commission of Bangladesh was established on 1 July 2009 by the Awami League government. It was based on the Right to Information Ordinance, which was passed in 2008 by the Caretaker Government during the 2006–2008 Bangladeshi political crisis and ratified by the parliament on 29 March 2009. The first chief information commissioner was M Azizur Rahman, a retired government secretary. Sadeka Halim, a professor at University of Dhaka, and Mohammad Abu Taher, another retired secretary, were the first two commissioners. They were selected through a selection committee led by a judge of the Bangladesh Supreme Court. Security and intelligence agencies are exempted from provisions of the commission. The inclusion of two former civil servants as commissioners drew criticism.

Out of the three commissioners, one of them must be a woman. To removal procedure for a commissioner is the same as that of a judge on the Bangladesh Supreme Court. The two commissioners have the rank of a government secretary since 2014.

Decisions of the commission regarding request for information can be appealed in courts. The commission provided information for 95 percent of the 6,369 requests it received in 2016. It also fines designated officers for not providing the requested information.