Secrecy Bill: Rushed debate will prevent sufficient deliberation
The DA is concerned that the Protection of State Information Bill is still scheduled to be debated on 15 November, despite the fact that the life of the Ad Hoc Committee was extended until 30 November. This will not allow enough time for further deliberations on the Bill.
The National Council of Provinces (NCOP) is currently in De Aar for the Taking Parliament to the People initiative. This means that the Ad Hoc Committee is not meeting on the Secrecy Bill.
The next scheduled, and final, meeting for deliberations is next week Tuesday (13 November) and the NCOP schedule still indicates that the Bill will be debated on Thursday 15 November. This is far too short a time to consider further amendments to the Bill to bring it in line with the Constitution.
Incidentally, the parliamentary programme for 15 November also includes oral questions to the President. One could only speculate as to why two such important and potentially newsworthy parliamentary events would be scheduled to overlap.
During last week's committee meeting, Minister of State Security Siyabonga Cwele fought back on important amendments that the committee had already made. There were no deliberations held after the Minister's presentation, which means that certain major principled decisions remain to be made.
The DA questions whether the ANC are now backtracking on their initial intentions that everyone must come to a consensus on the Bill. If this was truly their intent, then the debate should be postponed and the committee should continue with deliberations until consensus is reached.
I will be writing to the Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee today to express our concern about the apparent attempt to rush this Bill through the NCOP. I will also ask that the debate in the NCOP be postponed until the committee has had sufficient time to deliberate.
This process must not be rushed. We hope that the decision to debate on 15 November is not an attempt to have an unconstitutional bill pushed through Parliament.
Statement issued by Alf Lees MP, DA Member of the NCOP for KwaZulu-Natal, November 7 2012
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