‘Secrecy Bill’ now on final straight
THE years of protracted parliamentary deliberation on the “secrecy bill” entered the home straight on Monday, but final approval of the bill is likely to trigger a court challenge despite far-reaching amendments.
The ad hoc committee on the Protection of State Information Bill unanimously approved the adoption of amendments proposed by the National Council of Provinces (NCOP).
The Democratic Alliance (DA) and the African Christian Democratic Party voted with the African National Congress (ANC) in accepting the NCOP recommendations, but said they were still opposed to the bill as a whole. Attempts to get the ANC to consider further amendments failed.
The bill is still likely to be opposed in the Constitutional Court if signed into law by President Jacob Zuma in its latest form. The Right2Know campaign has promised to take the matter to court because it remains unhappy with the bill despite the latest amendments.
ANC MP Luwellyn Landers proposed that the amendments be accepted and incorporated into the bill.
DA MP Dene Smuts argued that the bill still legislated in the realm of provincial archives and this was an exclusive provincial competence in terms of the constitution. This on its own rendered the bill unconstitutional, she said, adding that the DA also believed that the bill had been processed according to the incorrect constitutional procedure.
The bill seeks to create a new system for the classification and declassification of state information. It was widely criticised in its original form for the heavy prison terms provided for those found guilty of being illegally in possession of state secrets for revealing them. It was strongly argued that if disclosing a state secret was shown to be in the public interest, then this should constitute a defence in court — the so-called public interest defence.
There is now a limited public interest defence in the bill.
This month the Right2Know campaign said that “despite some welcome amendments introduced during the NCOP deliberations, the bill has fallen short of calls for a just law that fulfils (the) constitutional requirements of openness and transparency.
“The bill would still criminalise ordinary citizens for possessing classified information — even information already in the public domain. In other words, any ordinary citizen accessing a leaked document in the public domain could face jail penalties of between five and 25 years. The bill promotes a concept of national security that is still broadly defined and open to abuse, which will risk over-classification by state and private bodies.”
This article was written by Wyndham Hartley and appeared in Business Day Live on 23 April 2013.
