Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi criticised the proposed Protection of Information Bill during the Ruth First memorial lecture at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) on Tuesday.
If Ruth First were alive, she would read the proposed Bill and ask where all the democrats had gone, he said, adding that it made a mockery of her work as a journalist.
First was an investigative journalist between 1947 and 1982, and was at the heart of the liberation movement in Southern Africa, participating in key moments of the struggle against apartheid, including helping to draft the Freedom Charter.
She would be shocked if she came back and saw the deterioration in the country’s economy, education system and health system, and the vast disparity between social classes, said Vavi, asking: “Was it worth her struggle?”
In 1956, First was one of 156 people arrested for high treason and spent 177 days in solitary confinement.
She died in 1982 when a parcel bomb, sent to her by apartheid agents, exploded in her office at a university in Maputo.
Vavi ended his speech saying: “Let the 28th anniversary of Ruth First’s death reignite our passion for economic justice, our hatred for inequality and our impatience with reformism. The working class will not wait forever.”
Less restrictive means
Meanwhile, a University of Cape Town academic has offered to hand over a year of his salary to the chief state law adviser if the Protection of Information Bill passes scrutiny by the Constitutional Court.
Constitutional law expert Professor Pierre de Vos proposed the wager during a Harold Wolpe Trust seminar at the university on Thursday evening.
He said the court would find that the controversial Bill, which seeks to set new rules for classifying information as secret, was simply too broad.
“Even if you can say that the purpose for the Bill is an important one, which I think is arguable, they will say there are far less restrictive and limiting manners to achieve the same purpose, and for that reason it is not reasonable and justifiable in an open, democratic society,” De Vos said.
“If the Bill is found in its present form to be constitutional, I will give one month or one year of my salary to the person who drafted this Bill, or maybe the chief state law adviser — on the condition that he will give one month or one year of his salary to me if the Constitutional Court finds otherwise.” — Sapa