/ 1 June 2011

Proposed Info Bill ‘goes against will of the people’

The Congress of South African Trade Unions’s opposition to the Protection of Information Bill was applauded by the Right2Know campaign on Wednesday.

“With such a powerful alliance member coming out in opposition to the draconian measures of the Bill, it is time for those behind the secrecy Bill to acknowledge that their proposed law goes against the will of the people,” it said.

Cosatu — part of the tripartite alliance with the ruling African National Congress and the South African Communist Party — said on Tuesday it would launch a court challenge against the Bill if it were passed without changes, to ensure transparency and to protect whistleblowers.

“The Right2Know campaign shares Cosatu’s concerns that the current draft of the Bill poses a great threat to whistleblowers, and would be open to abuse from officials.

“We take courage from the comrades of Cosatu for speaking out against the secrecy Bill as a regressive measure that would undermine all progressive struggles in our country,” Right2Know said in a statement.

Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven said the Bill could be abused to cover-up information on corruption and the misuse of public resources.

It prescribes lengthy prison sentences to anybody who comes into possession of a classified document and passes it on to anyone but the police.

It would affect workers who became aware of irregularities, and would compel trade unions to report members who uncovered classified evidence of corruption for violating the law.

Cosatu also objected to ANC lawmakers’ insistence that the Bill give all organs of state the power to classify data.

The beat goes on
Deliberations on the Bill continued in Parliament on Tuesday, and opposition parties signalled that a constitutional challenge was all but a foregone conclusion.

Dene Smuts from the Democratic Alliance objected to the ANC using its majority vote to retain a clause that would allow state organs to classify “integral file blocks or categories of state information”.

“The process is so unconventional … the process you have adopted is to outvote us. We know we are not going to move each other. It will be one of the grounds for challenge for us eventually,” she said.

The chairperson of the committee drafting the Bill, Cecil Burgess, declared last week that debate could not continue indefinitely and that disagreements would be resolved by a vote.

Right2Know urged South Africans to speak out against the Bill and said it had mounted a petition against it. – Sapa