Secrecy Bill will remain unconstitutional
I will write to President Jacob Zuma requesting that he provide clarity on his letter referring the Protection of State Information Bill back to Parliament.
Yesterday, President Zuma announced his decision to refer the bill back to the National Assembly because he deemed certain sections of the bill to be ‘lacking in meaning and coherence, consequently irrational and accordingly unconstitutional'.
In his letter to the Speaker, Max Sisulu, he specified that sections 42 and 45 of the bill needed to be amended in order for the it to pass constitutional muster.
According to Joint Rule 203, Parliament may only consider sections of the bill which have been referred back to the National Assembly by the President. However it is unclear from President Zuma's letter whether or not amendments to be considered on bill will only be limited to sections 42 and 45.
The DA's Dene Smuts MP, who was also a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Protection of State Information Bill was the one who initially raised these technical anomalies with sections 42 and 45.
While corrections to these sections are critical, they are merely technical and the Protection of State Information Bill will still remain unconstitutional.
The DA will participate fully in the process of correcting these sections as it is an important legislative process. However, we will continue fighting for the bill to be made constitutional.
Should the committee be afforded the powers to reconsider the bill its entirety, the DA will push for the following unconstitutional aspects to be addressed and amended:
- The bill remains incorrectly tagged as a section 75 bill, preventing provincial deliberation on it, and enabling the National Assembly to legislate on matters which do not fall in its purview.
- There still is the inclusion of valuable information as a category of classification. This allows information which is unnecessary for the protection of State security to be kept secret under the bill, leaving the door open for government abuse.
- The definition of National Security remains too broad. This could infringe on people's right to access of information and freedom of expression.
Should the scope to Ad Hoc Committee be only limited to amending sections 42 and 45, it will become clear that President Zuma's referral of the bill back to Parliament is merely an election ploy and not a genuine commitment to ensuring the bill's constitutionality.
When the bill is sent back to President Zuma for final ascent, the DA will once again petition him according to section 79 of the Constitution, highlighting the above unconstitutional aspects which he would have failed to address.
We will continue to fight for this bill to be rendered constitutional. Anything less is a betrayal of our hard-won freedoms.
Statement issued by Lindiwe Mazibuko MP, DA Parliamentary Leader, September 13 2013
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