RICA AMENDMENT BILL TABLED IN PARLIAMENT

RICA AMENDMENT BILL TABLED IN PARLIAMENT

• 30 August 2023
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

The Regulation of Interception of Communications & Provision of Communication-related Information Amendment Bill has been tabled in Parliament. It’s overarching purpose is to give effect to a September 2022 Constitutional Court judgment on the principal Act’s failure to provide ‘adequate safeguards’ to protect:

• ‘the right to privacy, as buttressed by the rights of access to courts, freedom of expression and the media’, and
• legal privilege.

According to a memorandum on the Bill’s objects, its proposals include:

• ‘adequate safeguards where the subject of surveillance is a practising journalist or lawyer’
• the mandatory notification of people under surveillance as soon as it is possible to do so ‘without jeopardising the purpose … of surveillance’
• ‘safeguards to address the fact that interception directions are sought and obtained ex parte’
• ‘procedures to ensure that data obtained pursuant to the interception of communications is managed lawfully and not used or interfered with unlawfully’
• procedures to be followed in examining, copying, sharing, sorting through, using, storing or destroying the data
• the designation and functions of an independent designated judge, and
• the designation and tenure of an independent review judge.

Please click the links below for more information:

• Bill
• Constitutional Court judgment
• parliamentary papers announcing the Bill’s formal introduction

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

0 COMMENTS

LEAVE A COMMENT