Secrecy Bill: DA to petition President Zuma-again
Last week the ad hoc committee on the Protection of State Information Bill completed its work on the bill despite not having clarity from President Jacob Zuma about the scope of the committee's work, and in the face of vehement opposition from various members of the committee.
When President Zuma sent the Secrecy Bill back to Parliament because he had Constitutional concerns about it, it was unclear whether the work of the committee would be limited to only section 42 and 45. The President's letter to Parliament created legal uncertainty in that it was vague and did not provide clarity on his reservations. I duly wrote to the President requesting clarity on the scope of his referral and I received no response from him.
DA MP, Dene Smuts, attempted to reason with ANC members and the chairperson, Cecil Burgess to persuade MPs to seek clarity from President Zuma in this regard. However, this attempt was shot down by Mr Burgess.
The President must be specific when referring Bills back, as the Constitutional Court has held.
The DA has maintained that even though much work has been done on this bill and the amendment of sections 42 and 45 was essential, there are still pertinent problems with it. These include:
Parliament does not have the competence to legislate on Provincial archives. If it is within Parliament's competence, the bill should have been tagged as a section 76 Bill, allowing the provinces a role.
The bill still deals with a category of information which has nothing to do with security or classification and which is called "valuable information" and allows the State Security Minister to make regulations in respect of what is ordinary governmental record keeping. This in our view is an attempt to perpetuate the MISS system, under which intelligence services have insight into information that is none of their business.
The definition of National Security remains too broad. This could infringe on people's right to access of information and of freedom of expression.
It is for these reasons that should this bill be passed in the National Assembly, I will petition President Zuma again under section 79 of the Constitution, highlighting the above unconstitutional aspects. It would be highly embarrassing for the institution and for all MPs if legislation that has been passed by Parliament is once again found to be unconstitutional by the courts.
President Zuma's silence on this matter and his continued refusal to clarify his instructions to Parliament confirm what we have suspected all along, that this referral was nothing more than posturing on his side ahead of the national elections in 2014.
The DA will not stop fighting until this bill is rendered constitutional.
Statement issued by Lindiwe Mazibuko MP, DA Parliamentary Leader, October 14 2013
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