In the last three years the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory has made a number of interventions in relation to the Protection of Information Bill.
The Centre has made written and verbal submissions to Parliament and has convened several dialogue forums for stakeholders. The Centre’s analysis of the rapidly changing draft Bill has been developed in partnership with the University of the Witwatersrand’s School of Law.
This analysis has identified four bottom-line issues: the scope of the public interest override; the criminalisation of the use and disclosure of protected information; the scope of application of the Bill; and automatic declassification (see recommendations).
On 17 August the Centre made a presentation about automatic declassification to the Ad Hoc Portfolio Committee on the Bill. The presentation explained the thinking behind the Centre’s 15 august written submission on the subject (see written submission).