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Practical exercise

File a Right to Information request and follow it through

Today you actually exercise Article 19A of the Constitution. You file an RTI on something you genuinely want to know, you submit it to the right department, you save the receipt, and you track the 14 working day deadline. The first RTI of your life will surprise you. Either the answer comes back, and you have learned something the average citizen never knew, or it does not, and you have a real grievance to escalate. Either outcome is a win.

75 min·practitioner
Mimi the mascot, encouraging you

Now try it

File a Right to Information request and follow it through

Stretch

Once you have one RTI under your belt, file a second one at a different level of government. If your first was provincial, file the second federally. The two procedures are slightly different and you will internalise both by doing both. Five RTIs in your first year as a citizen put you ahead of 99 percent of Pakistanis.

Goes into your portfolio

A scan or photo of: your filed RTI form with date stamp, the fee receipt, and the response (or evidence of non response and your appeal). Plus a 200 word note on what you learned and what next question opened up.