The South African Parliament’s joint standing committee on intelligence has objected to subpoenas being issued to South Africa’s intelligence and security services compelling them to provide classified or sensitive information.
Committee chairman Siyabonga Cwele — a ruling African National Congress MP — said in a statement that while it welcomed the Hefer commission, which is probing whether allegations that National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka was an apartheid spy, it argued that the subpoenas ignored the provisions of the law relating to national security in order to satisfy the objectives of the commission.
The committee, which met in closed session on Wednesday, argued on Thursday
that it would have serious consequences for South Africa both domestically and
internationally.
The role of the joint committee, it said in a statement, was to ensure that South Africa’s intelligence and security services protected and preserved the country’s national security, the defence of the republic and the investigation and combating of crime and the protection of classified or sensitive information in their possession.
”It is a universally accepted principle that information in the possession of the services cannot be made public. This included the names of sources, agents, operatives and identities of members.”
The committee advised that those who had brought the matter into the public domain ”should provide the basis for their allegations to be tested by the commission without causing databases and files of the services to be inspected at a great risk to the constitutional mandate of these structures.”
It is understood that those who have been subpoenaed included the head of the Naitonal Intelligence Agency, the South African Secret Service, defence intelligence, the commissioner of the South African Police Service and journalists. – I-Net Bridge