Not about the Bill, it’s about trust
It was a Black Tuesday last week when the much-vilified Protection of State Information Bill was passed with an overwhelming majority in the House of Assembly. The streets nationally and around Parliament were thronged with people dressed in black to mark what many people believe to be the return of apartheid-style legislation designed to muzzle the press, and pretty much anybody who wants to shine a light into the dark corners of state administration.President Jacob Zuma has been magnificently silent throughout the lead-up to the parliamentary vote, despite impassioned pleas for him to intervene and set the Bill aside.
This assault on our democracy is even more crass, when one contemplates the much-publicised instruction for the ANC chief whip, instructing all 264 ANC parliamentarians to be present last Tuesday at 2pm to vote on the Bill, and more specifically to vote in favour of the Bill. So much for the ANC’s frequent blandishments that it is a democratic organisation.
The Bill having been passed in to law, it must now go before the National Council of Provinces, but that is a mere hesitation in the passage of the legislation, as although it will be debated, it will be approved by the ANC majority in that toothless body. Then\[orielle.berry\]ce to the President’s desk for signature followed by promulgation in the Government Gazette, and woe betide anybody who transgresses the draconian provisions of the Act.
In much the same way that journalists became “poep-scared” when PW Botha imposed increasingly draconian measures to muzzle the press during the 1980s, today’s media practitioners will be daunted by the prospect of imprisonment if classified information comes their way. After all, if you were faced with the possibility of going to jail for 15 years, wouldn’t you think twice, public interest or not?
The significant lobby that has campaigned vociferously to derail the legislation, has now accepted it will be passed into law, and looks to the Constitutional Court for succour. Surely this legislation is unconstitutional and as such, the ConCourt will instruct Parliament to amend it? Well, we might like to believe this to be the case, but we have no way of knowing until the Court sits and deliberates on this matter.
But even if it is overturned, and Parliament goes back to the drawing board, and amends the contentious clauses in the Bill, what we must not lose sight of, is the intention behind this legislation.
Clearly, the ANC wants to practice mushroom management on the population in general – keep us in the dark and feed us on garbage\[orielle.berry\] shit – and that intention is not going to suddenly change if the ConCourt overturns the more contentious aspects of the legislation. On the contrary, the ANC will seek other ways in which it can control the free flow of information in our society.
It all comes down to a matter of trust. With this legislation, the ANC is saying to the nation “trust us to do the right thing”. The question that we must all ask of ourselves is simply this: can we trust the ANC with the power this legislation confers upon it?
Written by Norman McFarlane You are reading Not about the Bill, it’s about trust articles
