A committee tasked with determining, among other tasks, whether or not the names of apartheid-era spies be released into the public domain, is expected to release its report at the end of the month.
”We will send the report to National Intelligence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, and from there it will possibly go to Cabinet,” said Prof Bernard Magubane on Friday.
Magubane is the chairman of the Classification and Declassification Review Committee, formed in February this year to develop new criteria that will help guide the handling of information in the state’s possession.
According to Magubane, the committee had only received the 34 boxes of evidence elicited during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, which covered submissions from the ANC and the former apartheid government on spies.
”We only got custody (of the boxes) on Monday, and haven’t opened them yet. We will probably open them on Monday,” said Magubane.
He said the boxes had been with the Justice ministry.
Magubane did not want to comment on what the recommendation’s of the committee will be regarding the possibility of releasing the alleged spies names, saying he didn’t want to ”prejudge the process”.
Magubane said the committee had looked at international best practice and visited five countries — Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Canada and the United States — to help them with their deliberations.
”We are guided by the principles enshrined in our constitution, which guarantees the public the right to information.”
He said only information that could harm national security, in its various components such as military or economic, would remain classified.
Magubane said the committee was looking at a statute of limitations of between ”20 to 25 years”, but that this did not automatically mean the documents would become public.
”Theoretically yes, but in practice not so. We were surprised when visiting the US, that information going back to World War 1 was not public because of its continued utilisation by the state,” he said.
According to a ministry for intelligence publication, the process of declassification of previously withheld state information meets with practices of an open and democratic society, and was ”in line with the intelligence community’s vision of finding a healthy balance between secrecy and transparency.” – Sapa