Time for Parliament to withdraw the Bill, consult the people
The crisis facing the Secrecy Bill has brought Parliament to a crossroads. Parliamentarians can either continue to waste their time and the public’s money to grapple with this disastrous Bill, or they can read the writing on the wall: the Secrecy Bill must be withdrawn and resubmitted to a process of public consultation.
This is the choice facing our MPs after the acting speaker of Parliament, Nomaindia Mfeketo, unprocedurally extended the lifespan of the committee working on the Secrecy Bill.
According to parliamentary rules, a committee ceases to exist if its deadline expires before its work is done. In other words, this committee ceased to exist on 28 January 2011. Attempts by ruling party MPs to gloss over this glaring irregularity suggest that the ANC will try to push through this Bill by any means necessary.
After months of deliberations, stretching back to the 2010 Fifa World Cup, the now defunct committee has failed to fix the Secrecy Bill. In its current form it would still allow over a thousand organs of state, including municipalities, parastatals and public entities, to shroud their activities in secrecy. It would put whistleblowers and journalists in prison for up to 25 years for exposing the truth in the public’s interest. There has been no resolution on providing proper public oversight to prevent government officials from abusing their power.
As parliamentary officials continue to trip themselves up in basic procedure, a huge question mark hangs over the readiness of our MPs for a line-by-line redraft of the Bill. Parliamentarians may now help the deputy speaker save face by ratifying her invalid decision, or they can appoint a new committee to pick up where the last one left off – but it is clearer than ever that the Bill’s problems are too deep to be polished out.
The Right2Know campaign calls on parliamentarians to kill the Secrecy Bill NOW. Parliament needs to withdraw the Bill and re-submit it to a process of public consultation, based on the overwhelming public outcry about the Bill and criticisms of the previous ‘public participation’ process. The democratic swellings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are real-time lessons for leaders who are tempted to wall themselves off from their people. Any law that seeks to stem the free flow of information is undemocratic in its very conception, and needs to be resubmitted to the will of the people.
Forward with the Right2Know!
