Our team set up the Sobanukirwa website to help people to quickly and easily take advantage of the rights guaranteed to them under Rwanda’s access to information law.
But what are those rights, what does the access to information law say and where can you read the law for yourself if you want to find out more?
What does the access to information law say?
Rwanda’s 2013 access to information law was passed to “enable the public and journalists to access information possessed by public organs and some private bodies”.
This is important to repeat as many people believe the law only applies to journalists but actually the law guarantees these rights for all citizens.
Thanks to the law, you have the right to ask for any information held by organisations covered by the law and the organisations are legally obliged to give you the information for free in the form that you requested.
You can ask for information “verbally, in writing, by telephone, internet or any other means of communication without prejudice to the provisions of [the access to information] law”.
Where can you read the access to information law and ministerial orders for yourself?
All laws passed in Rwanda are gazetted and published by the Prime Minister’s office on their website.
Gazettes often contain more than one law but the Office of the Ombudsman have uploaded a PDF which just contains Rwanda’s access to information law on their website.
The multiple ministerial orders relating to Rwanda’s access to information law were all published in gazette no 2 of 13.01.2014 and can be found as a PDF on the Prime Minister’s website.
If you want to learn more about how Sobanukirwa makes it easy to use this law, you can read our launch blogpost in English or Kinyarwanda. We have also prepared a one-page guide on access to information and Sobanukirwa which anyone can read by clicking on this link.
As always, if you have any further questions about Sobanukirwa and how our website can help you, please email us or send us a message on Facebook or Twitter.
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