More than 26,000 official files await
declassification and their transfer to the national archives,
but ministries and other public institutions have been
reluctant to obey the law relating to declassification
Sources told Daily Times
that the administration of the National Archives of Pakistan
had already written several letters to various ministries
reminding them to declassify files that are 20 years old.
They said important ministries including Defence, Interior,
Foreign Affairs and the Cabinet Division are among the
biggest culprits.
The National Archives Act, 1993, passed
by the National Assembly on Feb 8, 1993, and the Senate
on March 2, 1993, says: “Public record… shall
be made available to the public for the purpose of reference
or research after twenty years of their creation.”
The Archival Material (Preservation and
Export Control) Act, 1975, also provides for preservation
of all materials that may be of historical significance.
In 2004, the review committee of the national
archives looked at some 50,000 files. The committee –
consisting of two retired professors, the director general
of the national archives and an official of the relevant
ministry or department - concluded that 26,552 files were
transferable to the archives. However, there has been
no positive movement from the ministries so far.
There is room in the National Archives
Act to exempt documents related to national security from
declassification. However, under the umbrella of that
exemption, several ministries have refrained from submitting
important official records.
The only exception provided in the law
for non-submission of records was left vague in terms
of time. “The secretary of an administrative division
may withhold the transfer of any such records to the National
Archives for such period or periods as may be prescribed.”
The files submitted to the national archives are divided
into two categories: ‘important’ and ‘ordinary’.
The important files include those which were confidential
before their declassification. The ordinary files were
considered public files.
None of the ‘important’ files
declassified by the big ministries contains major revelations.
Most of them relate to policy decisions. So far, the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs has submitted only 42 ‘important’
files, the Ministry of Interior has submitted 552 files,
Ministry of Finance 360, Ministry of Health 582, Ministry
of Education 6,116, Ministry of Sports 1,274 files, Ministry
of Tourism 1,219, Ministry of Culture 1,617, Ministry
of Water and Power two, Ministry of Labour and Works 53,
Establishment Division 260, Prime Minister’s Secretariat
390 and the Attorney General’s Office has submitted
8,232 files.
Of the 26,552 files that the review committee
of the national archives concluded should be declassified,
9,504 files are of the Prime Minister’s Secretariat,
6,771 of the Ministry of Labour and Manpower, 902 of Foreign
Affairs, 419 of Science and Technology, 794 of States
and Frontier Regions, 706 of Defence, 65 of Industries,
864 of Food and Agriculture, 200 of Defence (Aviation
Division), 3,845 of Culture and Sports, 144 of the Economic
Affairs Division, 375 of the Audit of Defence Service,
333 of the Livestock Division, 87 of the Planning and
Development Division and 423 files of the Cabinet Division.
The law makes it mandatory for government
departments to submit all papers, documents, records,
registers, printed material, books, maps, plans, drawings,
computer records, machine-readable records, photographs,
microfilms, cinematographic films and audio and video
recordings officially received or produced, including
records relating to commissions and committees appointed
by the federal government.
The National Archives of Pakistan is also
grossly understaffed and various review committees have
proposed recruitment, but to no avail.
