Citizens may soon face legal consequences for verifying or sharing information online. But when will the State be held accountable to citizens for the information it holds? This is a question that deserves to be raised in the debate surrounding draft law n°042/2026 on combating cybercrime, which is set to be examined by the National Assembly.

There is obviously no dispute about the need to fight cybercrime. Protecting citizens, businesses, institutions and digital systems against offences is a necessity.

But there is a problem of democratic coherence.

On one hand, the State is strengthening its legal arsenal to regulate behaviour and content in digital space. On the other hand, the draft law on access to public information, which should allow citizens, journalists and civil society to obtain information held by public institutions, remains blocked in the parliamentary process.

In other words: we are moving quickly on rules governing what citizens can circulate, but much more slowly on rules requiring institutions to make accessible the information they hold.

Yet the two issues are linked.

How can you verify information without access to public data? How can you effectively combat misinformation if reliable information produced by the administration remains difficult to obtain? How can you ask journalists and citizens to verify before sharing, if access to official sources remains an obstacle course?

The real issue is therefore not choosing between digital security and freedom of expression. The challenge is to build both together: protect digital space while guaranteeing the right to know.

At Tsimbazaza, the question therefore deserves to be put to parliamentarians: When will there be real progress on the LAICP?

Because asking citizens to better verify information must also be accompanied by an obligation for institutions to make public information truly accessible. The fight against misinformation cannot rest solely on punishing those who spread it. It must also rely on the transparency of those who hold the information.

Fah Andriamanarivo