The Open Democracy Advice Centre, a legal advice centre in Cape Town which specializes in right to know laws, will be the one of the few organisations in Parliament tomorrow providing constructive amendments to the Protection of Information Bill.
While the centre strongly objects to clause 18 of the Bill which has the effect of criminalizing whistleblowers and journalists, it recognizes the need for Parliament to introduce some sort of protection for information against unscrupulous individuals who use it to their own ends and endanger the public.
“We will argue that the present draft erodes 10 years of openness and transparency that South Africa has achieved since the Promotion of Access to Information Act was introduced, ”says ODAC Executive Director Alison Tilley, “but we hope also to make postitive legislative suggestions to strengthen our democratic rights to access information and safeguard its keeping from those who act against the public interest.”
“For example, we will be calling for a review of the Bill’s definition of national interest, ” says Tilley . “As it stands, it allows every organ of state to classify information and protect it from disclosure where it believes it to be in the public interest. This can’t seriously be in the national interest.”
The centre will brief Parliament on how the Bill’s extension of classification of information to commercial information and clause 18 conflicts with existing legislation (the Protected Disclosures Act and section 159 of the new Companies Act) as well as undermining the advancement of the Promotion of Access to Information Act).
Ad Hoc Committee on Protection of Information Bill meeting on 21 July 2010 at 10am.
Follow Alison Tilley on Twitter as events unfold at twitter.com/alisontilley
