The Times
*Cosatu chief hits out at state secrecy bill* *Thabo Mokone, The Times, Johannesburg, 30 March, 2012 *It is very dangerous, inconsistent with the constitution and will turn South Africa into a police state wherein every piece of government information is classified as secret.
This is how Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi described the Protection of State Information Bill yesterday during public hearings held by an ad hoc committee of the National Council of Provinces.
In his damning submission, Vavi said his labour federation remained stubbornly opposed to the proposed law, which has been termed "the secrecy bill", because it undermined transparency and would take South Africa back to the dark ages of apartheid, when all state information was hidden from the public.
Vavi said the bill would criminalise shop stewards for acting as whistle-blowers against corruption in the government, parastatals and other state organs.
Vavi said the bill, which the government has argued was designed to protect national security but not to conceal corruption, went far beyond that mandate because it gave heads of state organs the power to classify information "willy-nilly".
"This is no longer state security we are talking about and in the context of today's politics of fraud and corruption, and of disingenuity, including by the most trusted public servants, you have to be concerned that the scope of the bill is extended way beyond what is necessary," Vavi said.
"We feel the need to draw attention to the concern as to whether the bill does not inadvertently draw us close to a thread of entrenching a security state. Back to where we come from, the police state [in which] everything is marked confidential. We may unwittingly be rolling the clock [back] and taking us back to a police state."
The bill, which proposes a jail term of up to 25 years for anyone publishing classified state information, was approved by the National Assembly in November amid huge controversy. Almost all the opposition parties are against its passage.
All eyes are now on the National Council of Provinces to see if it will be sympathetic to calls for the inclusion in the act of a public interest defence.
Cosatu was firmly behind the inclusion of such a defence in the bill because the media had a critical role to play in exposing corruption in society.
Vavi said, had it not been for the media, the public would not have known about the litany of scandals involving high-ranking politicians, such as the police leases scandal that led to the firing of Public Works Minister Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde.
Advocate George Bizos also slammed the bill.He said it was inconsistent with the constitution in that it failed to provide for a public interest defence and allowed for "improper delegation of powers" in classification. He said the proposed jail term of 25 years "for exposing corruption was undemocratic".
*From: http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2012/03/30/cosatu-chief-hits-out-at-state-secrecy-bill*
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