The Protection of State Information Bill will be debated in the National Assembly next week, the office of the African National Congress chief whip said on Thursday.
“It will be debated next week Wednesday,” spokesperson Moloto Mothapo told the South African Press Association.
The debate on the Bill was originally scheduled for late September but was postponed at the last minute with the ruling party inviting further submissions on the contested state secrecy legislation.
Mothapo said the ANC believed this process had been completed. “We are satisfied with the level of what we have received”.
South African National Editos’ Forum media freedom chairperson and Mail & Guardian editor-in-chief Nic Dawes said: “The fact that the legislation is back in Parliament means MPs have another chance to repair its remaining serious flaws. The chief among these is the lack of a public interest defence, which the national council of provinces should add to the Bill, before passing it.”
Open to inputs
Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe suggested this week that the ruling party may yet heed calls from the media to write a public interest defence into the Bill.
Motlanthe said the argument was put to him by Sanef that it would be up to the courts in every case to decide whether the defence held.
“If that is the understanding it creates the basis for a meeting point,” Motlanthe told reporters from Parliament’s Press Gallery Association.
Media organisations and civil rights groups have vowed to launch a Constitutional Court challenge to the legislation if it were passed in its present form.
The ANC has steadfastly rejected all calls to include a clause that would enable people charged with disclosing classified information to argue that they had done so in the public interest.
State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele has gone as far as saying allowing a public interest defence would amount to shredding the Bill before it became law.
Calm fears
Motlanthe said it appeared that this was the main objection to the Bill and tried to calm fears that the ANC would use its majority muscle to railroad the legislation through Parliament.
“We will not use numbers to ram through willy-nilly any piece of legislation that does not comply with the Constitution.”
He pointed out that the Bill still had to be approved by both houses of Parliament and suggested that in the process greater consensus may be reached on the legislation.
“Who knows it may actually be in a position where the Bill is not challengeable in any way,” he added.
As the Bill stands, disclosing classified information is a crime punishable with prison sentences ranging from five to 25 years, depending on the level of classification and whether espionage is involved.
The Bill was scheduled for debate in the National Assembly in September but it was postponed at the last minute amid reports of a rift in the top echelons of the ANC over the legislation. — Sapa
The passing of the Protection of State Information Bill came as no surprise, raising the threat to media freedom. View our special report.
