R2K: No Double Standards On Access To Information And Democratic Participation – Government Must Practice What It Preaches!

The following statement was issued by R2K in response to an article in Business Day

No Double Standards On Access To Information And Democratic Participation: Government Must Practice What It Preaches!

Last week the Departments of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Economic Development and Trade and Industry, lodged a review application with the Competition Appeal Court to review and set aside what they label as an “unfair” hearing and decision by the Competition Tribunal to approve the Wal-Mart/Massmart merger.

In their application, the government departments present three key arguments to make their case:

• That the timetable for the hearing and the scheduling of witness testimonies “compromised the ability of all parties to properly ventilate their concerns”, thus reflecting “a process that unduly preferred expedition over other fundamental considerations”;

• That there were “serious flaws” in the Tribunal’s “provision of relevant information and documents by the merger parties”. As a result of this denial of access to certain information, the government departments were unable to show the full and negative impact of the merger on the South African economy.

• That this “lack of information in turn affected the ability of the Competition Tribunal to properly appreciate the potential damage of the merger and the crafting of appropriate conditions to address such damage”.

The R2K Campaign is fully aware of the power of the private sector in our society and the challenges that civil society organisations have encountered in trying to access information from and about private sector entities. In this spirit we endorse government’s efforts to access information relating to the Wal-Mart/Massmart merger.

However, we cannot help but note that the government appears to have adopted a double-standard in respect of its approach to full democratic participation and access to information when it comes to this case. The R2K Campaign is not in a position to comment on the specific legal or material merits (or otherwise) of either the Tribunal’s hearing process and decision or the government’s subsequent review application. However, we cannot help but note that the government appears to have adopted a double-standard in respect of its approach to full democratic participation and access to information when it comes to this case.

For many years now, two of the biggest failures of government have been its consistent denial of legitimate requests for access to information from, as well as its fair-weather approach to full democratic participation in government and legislative processes by, South Africa’s citizenry. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in respect of the past and ongoing life of the Protection of Information Bill (the ‘Secrecy Bill’).

As the R2K Campaign has argued for some time now, the rushed and often un-transparent Secrecy Bill process has not only compromised the ability of concerned groups and individuals to fully “ventilate” their concerns but the Bill itself represents a direct attack on advancing the right of citizen access to (government) information.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot in respect of the Wal-Mart decision, it is clear that the government wants to claim these same arguments for itself. While they are not wrong in doing so, government’s ‘new found’ approach certainly raises critical questions of fairness and consistency of principle. Demanding something for yourself in one case, while denying the same to others in most cases, is simple hypocrisy.

As the parliamentary hearings on the Secrecy Bill get underway again this week, the R2K Campaign therefore calls on government to adopt the same standards and expectations of itself that it is now applying in the Wal-Mart case. Set aside the Bill and re-start the process of engaging on information-protection legislation with full and open public/democratic participation.

Further, we call on government to adopt a consistent and principled approach true to the spirit of our Constitution in realising the right of access to information for all those who live in South Africa. Our collective rights cannot be sacrificed on the altar of expediency and double-standards!