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State Security Minister David Mahlobo has been drafting regulations for the Protection of State Information Bill – even though the draft law has been lying in President Jacob Zuma’s in tray for the past 18 months, waiting for his signature.
This means Mahlobo has been busy with the groundwork for the bill to be implemented as soon as it is signed into law.
The controversial draft law, dubbed the secrecy bill, seeks to regulate state information and will introduce punitive measures – including imprisonment – for those who publish classified information.
It was pushed through Parliament towards the end of 2013 after the president referred it back to the National Assembly for grammatical errors and mistakes in cross-referencing to be rectified.
At the time, the DA and African Christian Democratic Party wrote to President Zuma to request a much broader reconsideration of the bill, which has been widely criticised by civil society and the media.
But the ANC used its numerical strength in the ad hoc committee, which was processing the bill, and voted to shut the door on that move.
Mahlobo spoke to City Press after delivering his department’s budget vote this week and revealed that the drafting of regulations – which are guidelines on how a law should be implemented – was at an advanced stage.
“That important piece of legislation must be supported with appropriate regulations. We have taken a long time to draft the regulations ourselves. They are at an advanced stage now. They should be finalised soon,” he explained.
“I know that when I came in, they were holding the bill back.
“Immediately, [when] you put [a bill into law], you must then start doing the regulations, which help in terms of enforcement. They are very important and also in building the capacity to implement the bill,” he added.
Mahlobo said the bill was still an important piece of legislation that should go ahead, “if we can just complete the process of the regulations”.
“It’s a good law. I’ve read it,” he said.
In many cases, a bill is passed into law before regulations are drafted, but Mahlobo repeatedly suggested President Zuma was “probably” waiting to see regulations before signing the draft law.
“If you assent to the bill, it will be useless without regulations,” he said.
Mahlobo said he was aware that the “biggest issue” with the bill was around the matter of handling or publishing classified information.
“But you know, everywhere in the world it is an offence to handle information that is supposed to be handled in a particular way; you don’t do that. In private companies, people get fined. That thing is not bad; every country regulates information,” he said.
Mahlobo said the right to information and transparency “which is a good thing to hold people to account” came with obligations and responsibilities.
“You do the checks and balances and figure out in whose interests this information is being released and in whose interest this information remains classified.
“As long as we don’t start teaching each other what human rights mean, what this freedom means and what the responsibilities are.
“It’s like people wake up everyday thinking these rights have no limits,” Mahlobo said.
He did, however, admit that the bill was “up and down” at some point, but President Zuma as “an empathetic president who listens” had referred it back to Parliament.
Mahlobo said he could not provide definite timelines on the implementation of the bill, but said he would advise the president to consider the bill as soon as his team presented him with the regulations.
