Parliament Condemns Illegal Demonstrations at Committee Meetings on its Premises and Warns against Unauthorised Protests

Parliament strongly condemns the violation of rules of conduct governing public participation in its work by representatives of the Right2Know non-governmental coalition who yesterday held a demonstration at a meeting of the Ad-hoc Committee on Protection of Information Bill.

The conduct of the demonstrators was extremely disrespectful to the institution of Parliament, undermined public representatives and the ethos of a people's Parliament which encourages and welcomes public participation in its work. By law, demonstrations at Parliament are prohibited, unless permission for such demonstrations has been granted in accordance with the law.

The demonstration yesterday by members of Right2Know was particularly unseemly. All members of the public and civil society organisations had been afforded the opportunity to make their views heard about the Protection of Information Bill. Through this process, submissions to the Ad-hoc Committee and, generally, public input on the bill has been encouraged and received.

To disregard the democratic avenues open to the group to make themselves heard on matters before Parliament in favour of undermining the dignity of the institution through illegal acts is unacceptable and worthy of unmitigated condemnation.

Such acts will not be tolerated and Parliament will ensure that the full might of the law is applied to protect the institution and its Members in the conduct of their work.

The practice of opening committee meetings to the public only started with the establishment of our first democratic Parliament in 1994 to facilitate public participation in Parliament's law-making and oversight work. Since then, rarely have committee meetings been closed to the public. Where this happened reasonable and justifiable grounds existed to do so in an open democracy.

It is incumbent upon all South Africans to protect the dignity of the institution of Parliament as the Legislative arm of the state. It is also our shared responsibility, in spite of whatever differences we may have on specific issues, to respect and to defer to accepted rules and procedures aimed at ensuring that ours is a functioning democracy. Parliament and its Members owe their reason for existence to the many millions of South Africans who voted in the last elections. Both the institution and its Members, thus, do their work on behalf of all South Africans.

Ad-hoc committees are established by a resolution of the National Assembly and/or as provided for by the rules of the house. They should therefore be accorded the same respect and they carry the same gravity as the sitting of the NA.

If such grave misconduct as was displayed yesterday occurs again, Parliament will not hesitate to ensure that the law takes its course.

Statement issued by the Parliamentary Communication Services, February 16 2011

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