Final info bill talks delayed

Lawmakers' final meeting on the Protection of State Information Bill was postponed by a week on Wednesday after opposition parties failed to attend.

Although the meeting still had a quorum, thanks to the ANC's majority on the committee handling the bill, the party said it would rather postpone the deliberations than be accused of railroading the controversial legislation.

"Tomorrow, we should not be accused of bulldozing the process," said ANC MP Teboho Chaane.

Raseriti Tau, the chairman of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) Committee, accepted a proposal by the ANC members to schedule a meeting for the middle of next week.

"Unfortunately, if we were to proceed it would just be the ANC agreeing with itself," he said.

Tau said the Democratic Alliance and the Congress of the People had made their apologies, citing other obligations.

The committee's latest deadline for reporting to the NCOP on the official state secrets draft law is November 30.

It then has to be referred back to the National Assembly, which will be able to debate extensive changes made to the bill since it was approved by the upper house late last year amid a public outcry.

This will only happen next year, meaning that the bill is likely to become law only three years after it was introduced and slated as a regressive attack on freedom of information.

The NCOP committee in recent months announced widely-welcomed proposals, including raising the liability threshold for the offence of releasing classified information, increasing protection for whistleblowers and scrapping an express provision that it would trump the Promotion of Access to Information Act.

These changes still fell short of the demands of civil society, notably for a general public interest defence for disclosure.

But this week, the ANC withdrew some of its proposals, following pressure from State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele.

The party reintroduced clause 1(4) which would have the bill trump any other law dealing with classified information, and also re-inserted a maximum five-year prison sentence for disclosure of classified documents.

However, it resisted the minister's call to re-introduce the phrase "ought reasonably have known" in the offences clauses of the bill, which was taken out after legal experts protested that it placed too low a burden of proof on the state.

On Wednesday, ANC MP Sam Mazosiwe said it was regrettable that the re-introduction of a maximum five-year sentence was reported as a step backwards.

In fact, this was an attempt to limit the punishment that could be imposed for this offence, and prevent courts from looking to the longer terms allowed elsewhere in the bill for exposing secret and top secret information, he said.

"So, we trust that perception will gradually disappear."

Opposition parties have signalled their unhappiness with the ANC's latest changes in line with Cwele's demands.

Wednesday's meeting would therefore likely have come to a vote, with the ANC prevailing thanks to its majority.