A Freedom of Information bill is currently before Sierra Leone's Parliament. The Act seeks to "promote maximum disclosure of information in the public interest, to guarantee the right of everyone to access information, and to provide for effective mechanisms to secure that right."

 

One of the drafters of the bill, Emmanuel Saffa Abdulai, is the Founder and Executive Director of Society for Democratic Initiatives Sierra Leone, President of Human Rights Clinic of Sierra Leone. He was a youth activist and practiced journalism for three years, when he become the News and Future Editor of The Exclusive and later become Deputy Editor of The Independent Newspaper. Emmanuel drafted the Sierra Leone Freedom of Information Bill and he is chairman of the country's Freedom of Information and Expression Coalition. He is a member of the Media Foundation for West Africa, as well as the International Media Lawyers Association. A former Fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies in the Programme for Comparative Media Law and Policy, he studied media law and policy advocacy.

 

A major proponent of media law reform, he is challenging the constitutionalitity of the criminal and seditious libel laws in the Public Order Act 1965 in the Supreme Court of his country.