IN THE SPOTLIGHT: PROTECTION OF STATE INFORMATION BILL

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: PROTECTION OF STATE INFORMATION BILL

• 31 August 2024
• In the Spotlight
• SA Legal Academy

The National Assembly’s Justice & Constitutional Development Committee has been tasked with determining the fate of the controversial Protection of State Information Bill’s ‘H’ version, which was revived in July 2024 after lapsing at the end of the previous Parliament.

Originally tabled in 2010, the Bill was revised several times during the ensuing three years. Between April and November 2013, a ‘D’ version was passed, returned to Parliament by former President Jacob Zuma, revised – and the ‘H’ version passed, only to be remitted in 2020 by President Cyril Ramaphosa. No further processing took place, the National Assembly ad hoc committee concerned having been disbanded. The Bill was therefore left in limbo for nearly four years.

According to a memorandum on the Bill’s objects, its purpose is to ‘ensure a coherent approach to the protection of valuable information and the classification and declassification of state information’ – thus creating ‘a legislative framework for the state to respond to espionage and other associated hostile activities’.

Popularly known as the ‘Secrecy Bill’, the contentious piece of legislation has been criticised most recently for posing a severe threat to academic freedom (Jane Duncan in Communicatio, April 2018). Earlier opposition focused on clauses in the Bill perceived to undermine the constitutionally enshrined principles of freedom of expression and access to information.

President Ramaphosa’s reservations about the Bill’s constitutionality include a concern that it may have been tagged incorrectly as an ‘ordinary Bill not affecting the provinces’. This is likely to be the first matter considered by the National Assembly’s Justice & Constitutional Development Committee when the time comes to begin attending to the President’s reservations.

• Bill’s ‘H’ version
• President Cyril Ramaphosa’s remittal letter (parliamentary papers, pages 8-18)
• Criminalising Academia: The Protection of State Information Bill & Academic Freedom, (Jane Duncan, Communicatio, April 2018)
• National Assembly order paper confirming that the revived Bill is now before its Justice & Constitutional Development Committee

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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