July 31, 2008 – Parliament’s public hearings on government’s draft Protection of Information Bill began this week. The Foundation’s Memory Programme Manager, Verne Harris, made a verbal presentation to the Ad Hoc Committee for Intelligence Legislation on Tuesday July 29.
The Bill is designed to replace the apartheid-era Protection of Information Act (1982). The Foundation’s immediate interest in this legislation stems from the degree to which its memory work engages the reality of classified state documentation relevant to the life and times of Nelson Mandela.
In June 2008 the Foundation had submitted a joint written report to Parliament on the Bill together with the South African History Archive. In his verbal presentation, Harris commended the drafters for the Bill’s many progressive features, but noted several concerns: the need for the Bill to acknowledge more effectively the primacy of the Promotion of Access to Information Act in relation to public access to state documentation; the onerous nature of the classification and declassification procedures defined in the Bill; and the absence of an independent dispute resolution mechanism.