Witnesses summoned by the Hefer Commission of Inquiry may not refuse to testify or refuse to answer any question, commission secretary John Bacon said on Tuesday.
However, witnesses might ask not to be identified and to testify in camera, he said.
The commission, headed by retired appeal judge president Joos Hefer, is investigating allegations that National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka had been a spy for the apartheid government.
It will start on Monday with a series of public hearings at the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein. A list of witnesses to be called has not yet been released by its secretariat.
The Sowetan newspaper quoted journalist Ranjeni Munusamy earlier this week as saying that she would refuse to testify before the commission.
Munusamy told the paper the commission secretariat had informed her that she would be called as a witness, although she had not been summonsed yet.
”I don’t plan to testify either way. I am refusing to do so because of the normal journalistic principle of protection of sources taking precedence over everything else,” Munusamy reportedly said.
She recently resigned from the Sunday Times. This was after admitting that she had passed on documents to the City Press showing Ngcuka had been investigated by the African National Congress for allegedly spying for the apartheid government. — Sapa